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This article shows how a strengthening of existing plans by a global roll-out of successful, regional sector policies can ease the implementation challenge of reaching the Paris climate goals. The novel element of it is to integrate such detailed policy packages until 2030 into pathways that reach long-term targets until 2100 using an integrated assessment modelling framework. The study is only a first step in connecting the analysis of mitigation pathways towards the Paris climate goals with an assessment of the implementability of near to medium term (2020–2050) climate action that would be...

This article shows the potential impact on global GHG emissions in 2030, if all countries were to implement sectoral climate policies similar to successful examples already implemented elsewhere. This assessment was represented in the IMAGE and GLOBIOM/G4M models by replicating the impact of successful national policies at the sector level in all world regions. The first step was to select successful policies in nine policy areas. In the second step, the impact on the energy and land-use systems or GHG emissions was identified and translated into model parameters, assuming that it would be...

The Climate Action Tracker has updated our assessments of 23 of the 32 countries whose development on climate action we track. While some progress has been made since November, most governments’ policies are still not on track towards meeting their Paris Agreement commitments, many of which are in themselves far from sufficient to keep warming to the agreed 1.5˚C warming limit. Our assessments point to an urgent need for governments to scale up both their policies and targets to bring them more in line with a pathway to limiting warming to 1.5˚C. Summary of progress across countries: Renewable...

The Climate Action Tracker (CAT) with this paper is pleased to have the opportunity to provide input to the Talanoa Dialogue. Climate Action Tracker assesses countries’ mitigation targets and actions and aggregates them at the global level. This submission focuses on global results, country level information is available on climateactiontracker.org. Summary: "Where are we" compared to "where do we want to go"? The majority of NDCs assessed by the CAT are not in line with a fair contribution to meet the Paris Agreement’s long-term warming limit. Global GHG emissions need to peak around 2020 to...

A new analysis of agricultural emissions by the Climate Action Tracker shows that reducing emissions through changes in farming practices alone will not be enough to limit global warming to 1.5°C, but changing our diets and reducing food waste could make significant additional reductions, which calls for a much more holistic approach. Key messages : Mitigating emissions from agriculture is key to achieve deep cuts in emissions in line with the Paris Agreement’s long- term goal of “net-zero” Options for emission reductions on the supply side include efficiency improvements, take-up of best...

The goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change, as agreed at the Conference of the Parties in 2015, is to keep global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. It also calls for efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius. The UN Environment Emissions Gap Report 2017 presents an assessment of current national mitigation efforts and the ambitions countries have presented in their Nationally Determined Contributions, which form the foundation of the Paris Agreement. What’s new in this year’s report? This year...

The study analyses the country background, emissions trends, ongoing activities and barriers relating to the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of Viet Nam under the UNFCCC. A special emphasis is laid on further mitigation potentials. Fields of mitigation assessed are efficiency, the setting of right incentives for the upscaled deployment of renewables and emissions reductions in the transport sector. The planned increase in coal use – contrary to mitigation ambition in other fields – is assessed in relevance and perspective. All reports in this series: Colombia –...

The study analyses the country background, emissions trends, ongoing activities and barriers relating to the implementation of the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) of Indonesia under the UNFCCC. A special emphasis is laid on further mitigation potentials. Fields of mitigation assessed are land use, land use change and forestry ( LULUCF) governance and monitoring as well as electricity demand and generation. A chapter is dedicated to the ongoing and planned increase in coal use – contrary to mitigation ambition in other fields – including an analysis of the economic role and local...

One of the most fundamental questions surrounding the new Paris Agreement is whether countries’ proposals to reduce GHG emissions after 2020 are equally ambitious, considering differences in circumstances between countries. We review a variety of approaches to assess the ambition of the GHG emission reduction proposals by countries. The approaches are applied illustratively to the mitigation part of the post-2020 climate proposals (nationally determined contributions, or NDCs) by China, the EU, and the US. The analysis reveals several clear trends, even though the results differ per individual...

The Paris climate agreement aims at holding global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and to “pursue efforts” to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To accomplish this, countries have submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) outlining their post-2020 climate action. Here we assess the effect of current INDCs on reducing aggregate greenhouse gas emissions, its implications for achieving the temperature objective of the Paris climate agreement, and potential options for overachievement. The INDCs collectively lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to where current...

This paper provides an overview of options to assess mitigation commitments before Paris and beyond. This includes a review of current activities to assess individual INDCs as well as a discussion of some of the attributes and requirements such assessment needs to fulfil. The paper goes on to explore options of how the assessment could be carried out and linked to the UNFCCC process, followed by a discussion of methodological approaches to assess the ambition of mitigation contributions. In conclusion, it provides some recommendations on a feasible and realistic way forward drawing out...

A highly efficient use of energy is thus fundamental to limit GHG emissions. Yet, energy efficiency receives much less attention than the decarbonization of the energy supply. This study indicates that scenarios with higher energy efficiency mostly show lower abatement costs. This was the result of evaluating the large number of existing scenarios that comply with the internationally agreed 2°C target until 2050. The societal costs of decarbonization in these scenarios vary strongly and a detailed assessment of the potential cost reductions due to EE is lacking. In order to close this gap...

This report offers deliberations on what a “fair share” for emissions in 2025 and 2030 could be. It shows, for a selection of ten countries, how their respective INDCs perform if related to different fair share approaches and effort sharing models. These assessments also take into account national mitigation potential and costs and the wider context of socio-­‐economic devel-­‐opment of the countries. Finally, current policies and politics of each country are included in the assessments. Authors: Andrzej Ancygier, Jasmin Cantzler, Hanna Fekete, Markus Hagemann, Niklas Höhne, Daniel Kandy...

Many “non -state actors” - e.g. regions, cities, companies and whole sectors - have committed to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These activities become increasingly important next to nationally driven actions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The exact impact of these efforts on current and future emissions is unknown and under-researched. Mitigation activities of regions, cities and companies that are independent of national action are currently not comprehensively reflected in the projection of greenhouse gas emissions of Germany, which...

This article assesses Japan’s carbon budgets up to 2100 in the global efforts to achieve the 2°C target under different effort-sharing approaches based on long-term GHG mitigation scenarios published in 13 studies. The article also presents exemplary emission trajectories for Japan to stay within the calculated Budget.