Science-led targets
• An 85–90% cut by 2050. This is roughly what the science suggests would be required globally, relative to today's emissions, to give us a more than 50% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 2C – the point at which runaway warming becomes a real concern.
• An 95% cut by 2050. The same as above but with the remaining emissions distributed equitably around the world. The UK's cut would be higher than average due to its relatively high emissions per capita today.
Campaign targets
• A 10% cut in a year, as proposed by the 10:10 climate change campaign. If you successfully did this in consecutive years, as some experts have suggested developed countries should, that would be equivalent to 40% in five years or 65% in 10 years – hugely ambitious but enough to provide a strong chance of staying on the safe side of 2C.
Official targets
• A 74% cut by 2050. According to Danny Chivers, who assembled the data for the calculator, this is equivalent to the exisiting government target of a reduction in direct emissions of 80% by 2050, relative to 1990.
• A 15% cut by 2020. Simliarly, this cut in our calculator equates to the official government target of a reduction in direct emissions of 34% by 2020, relative to 1990.
For more help understanding the relationship of global emissions, concentrations and temperature rises, see our climate simulator.
