Aligning national and international climate targets

By admin3485, 13 November 2018

Only sixteen countries out of the 197 that have signed the Paris Agreement have defined national climate action plan ambitious enough to meet their pledges, according to a policy brief released on Monday (29 October), ahead of the crucial UN climate conference COP24 in Katowice (Poland) in December.

The 16 countries are: Algeria, Canada, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Japan, FYR Macedonia, Malaysia, Montenegro, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Samoa, Singapore and Tonga.

“Our analysis reveals that countries are being slow to reproduce their NDC (‘Nationally Determined Contribution’ or climate pledges in UN jargon) commitments as targets in national laws and policies,” the report said.

Implementing the Paris Agreement relies on countries’ translating their commitments set out in the NDCs into national laws and policies, which in turn define quantified and measurable domestic targets, the policy brief explained.

However, it found this translation to be inconsistent with the countries’ climate pledges, a situation that raises doubts about the likelihood of meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement, it warns.

The Paris agreement  will require unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society, including energy, agriculture, transport, urban and industrial systems. It will also require the engagement of non-state actors, and the integration of climate action into broader public policies and development frameworks.

The study ‘Aligning national and international climate targets’ was released by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, both at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the World Resources Institute.