Climate change commitment

Climate Change 2021 – The Physical Science Basis, Annex VII: Glossary, written by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and published by Cambridge University Press in 2023, defines the climate change commitment as:

…the unavoidable future climate change resulting from inertia in the geophysical and socio-economic systems. Different types of climate change commitment are discussed in the literature (see subterms). Climate change commitment is usually quantified in terms of the further change in temperature, but it includes other future changes, for example in the hydrological cycle, in extreme weather events, in extreme climate events, and in sea level.

Constant composition commitment

The constant composition commitment is the remaining climate change that would result if atmospheric composition, and hence radiative forcing, were held fixed at a given value. It results from the thermal inertia of the ocean and slow processes in the cryosphere and land surface.

Constant emissions commitment

The constant emissions commitment is the committed climate change that would result from keeping anthropogenic emissions constant.

Zero emissions commitment

The zero emissions commitment is an estimate of the subsequent global warming that would result after anthropogenic emissions are set to zero. It is determined by both inertia in physical climate system components (ocean, cryosphere, land surface) and carbon cycle inertia. In its widest sense it refers to emissions of each climate forcer, including greenhouses gases, aerosols and their precursors. The climate response to this can be complex due to the different time scale of response of each climate forcer. A specific subcategory of zero emissions commitment is the Zero CO2 Emissions Commitment which refers to the climate system response to CO2 emissions after setting these to net zero. The CO2-only definition is of specific use in estimating remaining carbon budgets.

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