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ABSTRACT Policy, business, finance and civil society stakeholders are increasingly looking to compare future emissions pathways across both their associated physical climate risks stemming

from increasing temperatures and their transition climate risks stemming from the shift to a low-carbon economy. Here, we present an integrated framework to explore near-term (to 2030)

transition risks and longer-term (to 2050) physical risks, globally and in specific regions, for a range of plausible greenhouse gas emissions and associated temperature pathways, spanning

1.5–4 °C levels of long-term warming. By 2050, physical risks deriving from major heatwaves, agricultural drought, heat stress and crop duration reductions depend greatly on the temperature

pathway. By 2030, transition risks most sensitive to temperature pathways stem from economy-wide mitigation costs, carbon price increases, fossil fuel demand reductions and coal plant

capacity reductions. Considering several pathways with a 2 °C target demonstrates that transition risks also depend on technological, policy and socio-economic factors. Access through your

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ANALYSIS OF LONG-TERM EMISSIONS AND WARMING IMPLICATIONS OF CURRENT MITIGATION EFFORTS Article 22 November 2021 ESTIMATING THE TIMING OF GEOPHYSICAL COMMITMENT TO 1.5 AND 2.0 °C OF GLOBAL

WARMING Article 06 June 2022 ACHIEVING NET ZERO GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS CRITICAL TO LIMIT CLIMATE TIPPING RISKS Article Open access 01 August 2024 DATA AVAILABILITY The datasets generated

during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. The GCAM data system is publicly available at

https://github.com/JGCRI/gcamdata. CODE AVAILABILITY All code used for data analysis and creating the figures is available from the corresponding author on reasonable request. REFERENCES *

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https://climateactiontracker.org/publications/global-update-paris-agreement-turning-point/ Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The study was funded by ClimateWorks Foundation. A.C.K. and S.

Mittal acknowledge the H2020 European Commission Project ‘PARIS REINFORCE’ under grant agreement no. 820846. We would like to thank G. Ganguly for constructive comments on the scenario

design and draft manuscript. AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Grantham Institute - Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London, London, UK Ajay Gambhir, Shivika

Mittal, Alexandre C. Köberle & Joeri Rogelj * Center for Global Sustainability, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA Mel George & Haewon McJeon * Joint Global Change

Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD, USA Mel George & Haewon McJeon * Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading, UK Nigel W.

Arnell * Met Office Hadley Centre, Exeter, UK Daniel Bernie & Jason Lowe * Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Daniel Bernie * Priestley International Centre

for Climate, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK Jason Lowe * International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria Joeri Rogelj * Centre for Environmental Policy,

Imperial College London, London, UK Joeri Rogelj * ClimateWorks Foundation, San Francisco, CA, USA Seth Monteith Authors * Ajay Gambhir View author publications You can also search for this

author inPubMed Google Scholar * Mel George View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Haewon McJeon View author publications You can also search

for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Nigel W. Arnell View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Daniel Bernie View author publications You

can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Shivika Mittal View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Alexandre C. Köberle View

author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Jason Lowe View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Joeri

Rogelj View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Seth Monteith View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google

Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS A.G. and S. Monteith conceived the study. A.G., D.B., J.L., H.M., J.R., M.G., N.W.A. and S. Monteith designed the scenarios and modelling protocol. H.M. and M.G. ran

GCAM. D.B. ran MAGICC. N.W.A. ran the climate impact models. S. Mittal undertook all scenario data analysis and visualization. A.C.K. advised on financial risk analysis and literature. A.G.

wrote the manuscript, with input from all authors. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Ajay Gambhir. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare no competing interests.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION PEER REVIEW INFORMATION _Nature Climate Change_ thanks Benjamin Leibowicz and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

PUBLISHER’S NOTE Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. EXTENDED DATA EXTENDED DATA FIG. 1 MODEL SET-UP TO

PRODUCE PHYSICAL AND TRANSITION RISK-RELATED OUTPUT INDICATORS FOR EACH SCENARIO. The different scenarios are set up in the GCAM integrated assessment model, considering the specific GDP and

population growth characteristics of the scenarios, the temperature goals, the scenario variants in terms of policy action, and any technological and behavioural constraints or

availability. The GCAM model outputs a range of energy, agricultural and land system metrics which are used to specify the transition risk-related output indicators. The emissions (spanning

all GHGs, aerosols and other climate forcers) are fed into the probabilistic climate model MAGICC, whose range of temperature outputs are then fed into the suite of impacts models. These

produce measures of physical hazard which form the physical risk-related output metrics. EXTENDED DATA FIG. 2 PHYSICAL AND TRANSITION RISK METRICS FOR FIVE ADDITIONAL REGIONS. Each heat map

shows 7 physical hazard metrics on the left-hand panel and 7 transition risk metrics on the right-hand panel. The metrics are expressed as a ratio of each scenario’s value and the value for

the 2 C Central scenario. For the physical hazard metrics, this is the median ratio across the uncertainty range. Each transition risk metric is for the year 2030, whereas each physical risk

metric is for the year 2050. Circle size indicates 2100 median temperature increase on pre-industrial (1850–1900) levels in each temperature scenario. SSA = Sub-Saharan Africa. These

indicators reflect the key findings for the USA, EU + UK, India and China, in terms of (in general) the increasing severity of 2050 physical hazards for the higher long-term temperature

scenarios, contrasted with the lower transition risks for these scenarios. One notable exception is Japan, which, like the USA and EU + UK, has a relatively stringent NDC to 2030, with

commensurately higher transition risks in this period, compared to the GCAM-modelled cost-optimal pathways targeting 2–2.5oC warming by 2100. EXTENDED DATA FIG. 3 HIGH (A) AND MEDIAN (B)

PHYSICAL RISK METRICS FOR WORLD AND FOUR REGIONS. Each heat map shows 7 physical hazard metrics, with the right-hand side (B) showing the median ratio of hazard values for each scenario

compared to the 2 C Central scenario, and the left-hand side (A) showing the high (90th centile) ratio of each scenario compared to the 2 C Central scenario. Each physical risk metric is for

the year 2050. The relative physical hazard of the higher temperature scenarios is more severe compared to the 2 C Central scenarios when using the high (90th) centile values in the

distribution. This is shown by the deeper green and blue colours for each scenario and physical hazard metric in panel A), compared to its equivalent in panel B). SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION Supplementary Sections 1–4 containing Figs. 1, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1–3.25, 4.1–4.10 and Table 2.1. REPORTING SUMMARY RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints and permissions ABOUT

THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Gambhir, A., George, M., McJeon, H. _et al._ Near-term transition and longer-term physical climate risks of greenhouse gas emissions pathways. _Nat. Clim.

Chang._ 12, 88–96 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01236-x Download citation * Received: 07 June 2021 * Accepted: 04 November 2021 * Published: 13 December 2021 * Issue Date:

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