Comparing the Sequence of Climate Change Mitigation Targets and Policies in Major Emitting Economies

Leonardo Nascimento, Michel den Elzen, Takeshi Kuramochi, Santiago Woollands, Ioannis Dafnomilis, Mia Moisio, Mark Roelfsema, Nicklas Forsell, Zuelclady Araujo Gutierrez

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

The Paris Agreement requires that countries submit and update their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to mitigate global climate change. This study projected greenhouse gas emissions to evaluate the progress of 25 countries towards their original and updated NDCs. It found that almost one-quarter of the countries submitted more ambitious, updated NDCs without adopting sufficient policies to meet their original targets. Additionally, in most countries, updated NDCs lead to emissions above current policies. The findings also suggest that these patterns are influenced by national constraints, especially reliance on fossil fuels. Appropriate sequencing of ambition raising and policy adoption is urgently needed to translate the Paris Agreement into action.

Original languageUndefined/Unknown
Pages (from-to)233-250
JournalJournal of Comparative Policy Analysis: Research and Practice
Volume26
Issue number3-4
Early online dateNov 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Funding

This work was supported by the Directorate-General for Climate Action [090302/2021/854077/SER/CLIMA.C.1/REN]; H2020 European Institute of Innovation and Technology [101056873]. The authors would like to express their gratitude to the organisers and participants of the workshop on comparative climate policy that took place in Mannheim, Germany for their constructive comments on this manuscript. We would also like to express our gratitude to the following members of the NewClimate Institute team (alphabetical order): Frederic Hans, Gustavo de Vivero, Hanna Fekete, Jamie Wong, Maria Jose de Villafranca Casas, Natalie Pelekh and Swithin Lui for preparing country-specific analyses. We are also grateful to the many researchers maintaining the Climate Action Tracker project. Finally, we thank Polina Korneeva for improving the ambition-raising framework figure.

FundersFunder number
Directorate-General for Climate Action
NewClimate Institute
H2020 European Institute of Innovation and Technology101056873

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