Commonalities and differences in national pathways toward net-zero emissions
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National climate mitigation scenarios play a significant role in the national climate policymaking. They tend to include heterogeneous contexts due to individual socio-economic circumstances, resource availability, national interests, and emission levels. However, this hinders the collective evaluation of national pathways across countries and their coherence with global goals. Here, we assess national net-zero emissions scenarios for 23 countries from 38 national models developed under a common scenario protocol. We show that, despite heterogeneity in national circumstances, consistent mitigation patterns emerge across countries, including declining fossil fuel supply, increasing electrification, and non-fossil energy supply. Meanwhile, the contribution of individual non-fossil sources, such as wind and solar, varies across countries. We also find that national scenarios show greater divergence, which implies a greater advantage over global scenarios for national policy. This study underlines the importance of country-specific scenarios and routine evaluations to align collective efforts toward global temperature goals.
