By Cassie Kelly, EcoWatch.com, April 13, 2017

The planet, as we know it, has been given a deadline: 10 years. According to the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, if humans don’t reduce greenhouse gas emissions drastically and maintain carbon sinks, like forests, then the results will be catastrophic for the climate. But they’ve developed a model that they believe could do the trick.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, outlines a plan that could simultaneously account for carbon uptake by plants and carbon release by anthropogenic (human-induced) activities.

“The study shows that the combined energy and land-use system should deliver zero net anthropogenic emissions well before 2040 in order to assure the attainability of a 1.5°C target by 2100,” said Michael Obersteiner, coauthor and IIASA director.

The target is in line with the Paris agreement on climate change, which 194 countries signed, promising not to surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius of atmospheric warming. But the agreement allows countries to accomplish this in whatever way they see necessary and doesn’t give clear instructions.

The IIASA model calls for fossil fuel consumption to be reduced to less than 25 percent of the global energy supply by 2100, a drastic cut from the 95 percent being used right now. Deforestation would also need to be cut majorly to lead to a 42 percent decrease in cumulative emissions.