Work Package 2

Assessment of international country pledges, national action plans and development policies

Future GHG emissions will be strongly influenced by energy, climate and development policies at the national and regional level. Several countries have, in addition to formulating national policies, pledged international action under the UNFCCC (UNFCCC, 2010). Yet, while several studies have analysed whether the current suite of pledges are sufficient for limiting global temperature increase to 2 ºC (UNEP, 2013), a more limited set has analysed how likely the pledges are to be achieved and whether they are consistent with pre-existing and planned policies and measures at the national level (Fekete et al., 2013; Roelfsema et al., 2014). Looking ahead to the climate negotiations in Paris in 2015, many countries are in the process of formulating their post-2020 pledges (or contributions), considering, among other things, national energy, climate and development policies and potential domestic barriers or challenges to their implementation.

This work package aims to inform the ongoing policy dialogue by reviewing how much domestic climate and development policies in major emitting countries would contribute to reducing GHG emissions and comparing the resulting emission levels with the existing pledges. Specifically, we will analyse whether these pledges and policies are sufficient for limiting global temperature increase to 2°C. Another key objective of the work package is to explore alternatives to the “emissions and adaptation gap” approach and how these alternatives can be formulated and used to appraise current emissions and development trends as well as adaptation deficits vis-à-vis long-term national and global targets.

WP2 will be sub-divided into three tasks. Operating in parallel, and with strong linkages to other WPs, these tasks will (i) review existing energy/climate action plans and sustainable development policies in G20 countries, (ii) assess the impact of those policies on energy use and emissions and compare them to countries’ international pledges, and (iii) identify critical national and regional “gaps” where current near-term policy plans fall short in their ambition to reach medium and long-term objectives (for both sustainable development and climate change).

Key research questions:

• Where do countries’ energy, climate, adaptation and development policies lead to in terms of energy and emissions projections?
• Where do current near-term policy plans fall short in their ambition to reach medium and long-term objectives for sustainable development and climate change?