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Taking stock of national climate policies to evaluate implementation of the Paris Agreement

Journal Article · · Nature Communications
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  1. Utrecht Univ. (Netherlands)
  2. Utrecht Univ. (Netherlands); PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Netherlands)
  3. Potsdam Inst. for Climate Impact Research (PIK) (Germany)
  4. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (Netherlands)
  5. Wageningen Univ. & Research (Netherlands); NewClimate Inst., Cologne (Germany)
  6. Wageningen Univ. & Research (Netherlands)
  7. International Inst. for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg (Austria)
  8. Potsdam Inst. for Climate Impact Research (PIK) (Germany); Technische Univ. Berlin (Germany)
  9. European Commission, Seville (Spain). Joint Research Centre
  10. RFF-CMCC European Inst. on Economics and the Environment (EIEE), Milan (Italy)
  11. International Inst. for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg (Austria); Climate Analytics, Berlin (German)
  12. Kyoto Univ. (Japan)
  13. National Technical Univ. of Athens (Greece)
  14. Research Inst. of Innovative Technology for the Earth, Kyoto (Japan)
  15. Univ. Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  16. Univ. Federal do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil); Imperial College, London (United Kingdom)
  17. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (China)
  18. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), College Park, MD (United States). Joint Global Change Research Inst.
  19. National Development and Reform Commission, Beijing (China)
  20. India Habitat Center, New Delhi (India)
  21. National Research Univ. Higher School of Economics, Moscow (Russia)
  22. Indian Inst. of Management-Ahmedabad, Public Systems Group (India); National Inst. for Environmental Studies (Japan)
+ Show Author Affiliations

Many countries have implemented national climate policies to accomplish pledged Nationally Determined Contributions and to contribute to the temperature objectives of the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2023, the global stocktake will assess the combined effort of countries. Here, based on a public policy database and a multi-model scenario analysis, we show that implementation of current policies leaves a median emission gap of 22.4 to 28.2 GtCO2eq by 2030 with the optimal pathways to implement the well below 2 °C and 1.5 °C Paris goals. If Nationally Determined Contributions would be fully implemented, this gap would be reduced by a third. Interestingly, the countries evaluated were found to not achieve their pledged contributions with implemented policies (implementation gap), or to have an ambition gap with optimal pathways towards well below 2 °C. This shows that all countries would need to accelerate the implementation of policies for renewable technologies, while efficiency improvements are especially important in emerging countries and fossilfuel- dependent countries.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; European Union; Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1634899
Report Number(s):
PNNL-ACT-SA--10488
Journal Information:
Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 11; ISSN 2041-1723
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Figures / Tables (10)

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
climate-change mitigation
climate-change policy