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This executive summary outlines priority actions to reduce lifecycle emissions from plastics. It calls for minimising production, enhancing circularity and decarbonising production systems. It highlights key differences between major global plastic producers and consumers, identifying critical policies and action gaps.

This is the 2024 edition of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report series, which tracks our progress in limiting global warming well below 2°C and pursuing 1.5°C in line with the Paris Agreement.

This technical note describes the State of Climate Action series’ methodology for identifying sectors that must transform, translating these transformations into global mitigation targets primarily for 2030, 2035 and 2050 and selecting indicators with datasets to monitor annual change.

The State of Climate Action 2023 provides the world’s most comprehensive roadmap of how to close the gap in climate action across sectors to limit global warming to 1.5°C. It finds that recent progress toward 1.5°C-aligned targets isn’t happening at the pace and scale necessary and highlights where action must urgently accelerate this decade to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, scale up carbon removal and increase climate finance.

The Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement offers an opportunity to formulate specific messages for increasing climate change mitigation to inform Parties in updating and enhancing their actions.

The midyear UN climate conference “ 58th session of the Subsidiary Bodies” will take place from 5 to 15 June 2023. NewClimate Institute will be present in Bonn participating in multiple events. Additionally, we will release related publications before and during thhe SB58. You can find all information on this page.

In this analysis, we demonstrate how global progress across a range of sectoral emission indicators can be assessed using performance distributions to allow for a detailed and nuanced analysis without singling out individual countries.

This report assesses progress across 40 indicators of systems change and finds that none are on track to reach their 2030 targets.

Visualising country progress as performance distributions fulfils the GST’s criteria of evaluating collective progress while communicating that not all countries are the same.

Combatting the climate crisis requires us to rapidly transform the systems that propel our economy, including power generation, buildings, industry, transport, land use, and agriculture—as well as the immediate scale-up of technological carbon removal. But by how much? And how can decision-makers unlock the transformational change that is required? The State of Climate Action 2021 identifies 40 indicators across key sectors that must transform to address the climate crisis, and assesses how current trends will impact how much work remains to be done by 2030 and 2050 to deliver a zero-carbon...

This is the twelfth edition of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report. It assesses the gap between estimated future global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if countries implement their climate mitigation pledges and the global emission levels from least-cost pathways that are aligned with achieving the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. This difference between “where we are likely to be and where we need to be” has become known as the ‘emissions gap’. The report also examines further areas that are highly relevant for bridging the gap: updated NDCs and Net...

This article published in "Nature Climate Change" analyses the recent wave of national net zero targets showing that there is significant momentum which could bring the temperature limit of the Paris Agreement within reach. Summary: A total of 131 countries are discussing, have announced, or have adopted net zero targets, covering 72% of global emissions. National net zero emission targets could, if fully implemented, substantially lower projected temperature increase compared to currently implemented policies (2.9–3.2 °C) or pledges submitted to the Paris Agreement (2.4–2.9 °C). While being a...

In these briefings, the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) introduces its new rating methodology, which now rates more elements than before – mitigation targets in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), policies and action, and climate finance. We’ve also added a methodology for assessing net zero targets. These briefings provides an overview of the development in climate action over the last year and illustrates the new CAT assessment of the countries we analyse, based on our updated method. Summary Code red: The new IPCC report on climate science has reinforced the absolute urgency of closing...

International environmental law principles are used to assess indicators of fair share emissions reductions and narrow the range of what is considered a fair share for individual countries. Main Findings: This article tests fairness justifications offered in 168 nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the 2015 Paris Agreement against the touchstone of principles of international environmental law. It finds that while many NDCs refer to elements and indicators that are backed by principles of international law in determining fair shares (sustainable development, special circumstances...

This study published in the "Environmental Science & Policy" journal assesses if nine key non-G20 countries meet 2030 GHG targets with existing policies. Main Findings: This study compares greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions projections in 2030 under current policies and those under 2030 mitigation targets for nine key non-G20 countries, that collectively account for about 5 % of global total emissions today. These include the four largest non-G20 fossil CO 2 emitting Parties to the UN climate convention pre-Paris Agreement (Iran, Kazakhstan, Thailand and Ukraine) and one of the largest land-use...