scholarly journals Global roll-out of comprehensive policy measures may aid in bridging emissions gap

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heleen L. van Soest ◽  
Lara Aleluia Reis ◽  
Luiz Bernardo Baptista ◽  
Christoph Bertram ◽  
Jacques Després ◽  
...  

AbstractClosing the emissions gap between Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the global emissions levels needed to achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate goals will require a comprehensive package of policy measures. National and sectoral policies can help fill the gap, but success stories in one country cannot be automatically replicated in other countries. They need to be adapted to the local context. Here, we develop a new Bridge scenario based on nationally relevant, short-term measures informed by interactions with country experts. These good practice policies are rolled out globally between now and 2030 and combined with carbon pricing thereafter. We implement this scenario with an ensemble of global integrated assessment models. We show that the Bridge scenario closes two-thirds of the emissions gap between NDC and 2 °C scenarios by 2030 and enables a pathway in line with the 2 °C goal when combined with the necessary long-term changes, i.e. more comprehensive pricing measures after 2030. The Bridge scenario leads to a scale-up of renewable energy (reaching 52%–88% of global electricity supply by 2050), electrification of end-uses, efficiency improvements in energy demand sectors, and enhanced afforestation and reforestation. Our analysis suggests that early action via good-practice policies is less costly than a delay in global climate cooperation.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heleen van Soest ◽  
Lara Aleluia Reis ◽  
Luiz Bernardo Baptista ◽  
Christoph Bertram ◽  
Jacques Després ◽  
...  

Abstract Closing the remaining emissions gap between Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the global emissions levels needed to achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate goals will likely require a comprehensive package of policy measures. National and sectoral policies can help fill the gap, but success stories in one country cannot be automatically replicated in other countries, but need to be adapted to the local context. Here, we develop a new Bridge scenario based on nationally relevant measures informed by interactions with country experts. We implement this scenario with an ensemble of global integrated assessment models (IAMs). We show that a global roll-out of these good practice policies closes the emissions gap between current NDCs and a cost-optimal well below 2 °C scenario by two thirds by 2030 and more than fully by 2050, while being less disruptive than a scenario that delays cost-optimal mitigation to 2030. The Bridge scenario leads to a scale-up of renewable energy (reaching 50%-85% of global electricity supply by 2050), electrification of end-uses, efficiency improvements in energy demand sectors, and enhanced afforestation and reforestation. Our analysis suggests that early action via good-practice policies is less costly than a delay in global climate cooperation.


2020 ◽  
pp. 019251212096388
Author(s):  
Prabhat Upadhyaya ◽  
Manish Kumar Shrivastava ◽  
Ganesh Gorti ◽  
Saliem Fakir

Countries must develop their capacity to credibly revise their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) proportionate to the global climate goal. This paper argues that long-lasting capacity is necessarily embedded in the institutions governing cooperation between state and non-state actors. This institutional capacity for cooperation is determined by the two interactive processes of conception and calibration, where the state plays a definitive role in mediating between competing interests. In conception, the state uses its discretionary power to set the long-term vision, whereas during calibration it exercises flexibility to accommodate concerns and capacity of other actors. We conclude that proportionality of policy response is better understood, and achieved, through the convergence of both these processes. Drawing on climate policy experiences of India and South Africa, we recommend that successful implementation and enhancement of NDCs would require a greater emphasis on capacity building for calibration in developing countries.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 77-102
Author(s):  
Agyemang Sampene ◽  
Cai Li ◽  
Fredrick Agyeman ◽  
Robert Brenya

Global climate change has emerged as humanity’s greatest challenge, affecting both the natural security of the earth and the long-term growth of human society. Protecting the environment and fostering long-term growth while reducing carbon emissions has become a global concern. The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) are participating in the fight against climate change through the promotion of low-carbon environment (LCE). In this study, we use content analysis to discuss some of the policies, plans, and programs outlined by the various governments in the BRICS that can help them implement an LCE. The study indicates that currently Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa are rated as “insufficient,” “critically insufficient,” “compatible,” “incompatible,” and “highly insufficient” respectively in their commitment to nationally determined contributions (NDC) to the Paris Agreement. The paper recommends that the BRICS countries achieve an LCE through expanding low-carbon investments and financing, focusing on taxation that goes beyond energy, investing in low-carbon cities, adapting to a circular economy and low-carbon technologies, expanding electricity markets, and promoting climate-friendly international trade among the BRICS countries.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcela Jaramillo ◽  
Valentina Saavedra

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicates that meeting the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting the global temperature rise from pre-industrial levels to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius requires reaching net-zero emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) between 2050 and 2070, as well as deep reductions in the emissions of other greenhouse gases by around mid-century (GHGs) (IPCC, 2018). At the same time countries need to build resilience to face the changes that cannot be avoided. NDC Invest was created as the one-stop-shop of the IDB Group providing technical and financial support for countries in Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) in their efforts to achieve the climate objectives under the Paris Agreement, seeking to transition to a net zero, resilient and sustainable development pathways that improve quality of life and prosperity in LAC. Through our research and experience supporting countries and piloting solutions we have developed a toolbox for support. This paper describes three NDC Invest products to support Governments to tackle challenges and scale up action towards a climate aligned and sustainable development path: i) the design of Long-Term Strategies (LTS) for net-zero emissions and resilience; ii) design of ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), aligned to LTS; and iii) design of investment plans and finance strategies. Our three products are not a fix recipe, but rather a toolbox to provide flexible and relevant solutions tailored to country needs and context, and different stages of design and implementation of their climate targets.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  

NDC Invest was created as the one-stop-shop of the IDB Group providing technical and financial support for countries in Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) in their efforts to achieve the climate objectives under the Paris Agreement, seeking to transition to a net-zero, resilient, and sustainable development pathway that improves the quality of life and prosperity in LAC. We have recently published a paper that describes three NDC Invest products to support Governments to tackle challenges and scale up action towards a climate-aligned and sustainable development path. In this Special Bulletin, we provide a snapshot of our thee products: i) the design of Long-Term Strategies (LTS) for net-zero emissions and resilience; ii) design of ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), aligned to LTS; and iii) design of investment plans and finance strategies.


Author(s):  
P. Brian Fisher

I argue that the long-term risk of global climate change has been mischaracterized as an environmental issue, and therefore, solutions based solely on national emission targets will be ineffective. Thus, this paper argues for establishing long-term goals emphasizing both adaptation and clean energy to generate equitable and effective global climate policy that addresses this fundamental threat. This requires defining and operationalizing the overall objective contained in Article 2 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. A second key aspect to operationalizing Article 2 is to understand those ‘particularly vulnerable’ as declared in the Article and in various climate agreements. Once operationalized, these long-term objectives can be achieved through approaches that emphasize the development of clean energy (and concomitant technology), and adaptation within vulnerable communities in their local context. It necessitates dropping formal mechanisms at the current core of the regime designed to regulate national emissions, and instead build the core of the regime around the ‘stabilization’ of both the climate system through clean energy and vulnerable people through effective adaptation.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tianyi Sun ◽  
Ilissa B. Ocko ◽  
Elizabeth Sturcken ◽  
Steven P. Hamburg

AbstractNet zero greenhouse gas targets have become a central element for climate action. However, most company and government pledges focus on the year that net zero is reached, with limited awareness of how critical the emissions pathway is in determining the climate outcome in both the near- and long-term. Here we show that different pathways of carbon dioxide and methane—the most prominent long-lived and short-lived greenhouse gases, respectively—can lead to nearly 0.4 °C of warming difference in midcentury and potential overshoot of the 2 °C target, even if they technically reach global net zero greenhouse gas emissions in 2050. While all paths achieve the Paris Agreement temperature goals in the long-term, there is still a 0.2 °C difference by end-of-century. We find that early action to reduce both emissions of carbon dioxide and methane simultaneously leads to the best climate outcomes over all timescales. We therefore recommend that companies and countries supplement net zero targets with a two-basket set of interim milestones to ensure that early action is taken for both carbon dioxide and methane. A one-basket approach, such as the standard format for Nationally Determined Contributions, is not sufficient because it can lead to a delay in methane mitigation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandrine Mathy ◽  
Philippe Menanteau

  Greater efforts are needed to bridge the emission gap between Nationally Determined Contributions and the objective to limit climate change below 2°C. This paper focuses on four European-Union countries: Germany, France, Poland and UK that represent on aggregate 55% of current EU emissions. It analyses national mitigation strategies produced by national research teams in the framework of the COP21_RIPPLES project and compatible with a long-term objective leading to a well below 2°C target either as part of an ambition in 2030 limited to that of the NDCs, or as part of more ambitious early action. We use the decarbonization wedges methodology, an advanced index decomposition analysis methodology for quantifying the contribution of different mitigation strategies. This makes it possible to assess the priorities for action to strengthen the NDCs. The article also highlights the impact sectoral growth dynamics have on the emission trajectories and the resulting necessary mitigation efforts.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zack Parisa ◽  
Eric Marland ◽  
Brent Sohngen ◽  
Gregg Marland ◽  
Jennifer Jenkins

Abstract Widespread concern about the risks of global climate change is increasingly focused on the urgent need for action (IPCC, 2018; IPCC, 2021), and natural climate solutions are a critical component of global strategies to achieve low temperature targets (e.g. Griscom et al. 2017, Roe et al. 2019). Yet to date, the full potential of natural systems to store carbon has not been leveraged because policy-makers have required long-term contracts to compensate for permanence concerns, and these long-term contracts substantially raise costs and limit deployment. In this paper, we lay out the rationale that our time preference for early action embedded in the Global Warming Potentials (GWP) leads to the conclusion that multiple tons of short-term storage of carbon in ecosystem stocks can be considered to have equal value – as measured by the social cost of carbon -- as 1 ton of carbon sequestered permanently. This equivalence can be used to quantify the value of short-term carbon storage, thereby removing one of the most significant barriers to participation in the carbon market and enabling the full climate mitigation potential of the land sector to be realized.


2014 ◽  
Vol 155 (23) ◽  
pp. 911-917 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Szabó ◽  
Karolina Böröcz

Introduction: Healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial use are common among residents of long-term care facilities. Faced to the lack of standardized data, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control funded a project with the aim of estimating prevalence of infections and antibiotic use in European long-term care facilities. Aim: The aim of the authors was to present the results of the European survey which were obtained in Hungary. Method: In Hungary, 91 long-term care facilities with 11,823 residents participated in the point-prevalence survey in May, 2013. Results: The prevalence of infections was 2.1%. Skin and soft tissues infections were the most frequent (36%), followed by infections of the respiratory (30%) and urinary tract (21%). Antimicrobials were mostly prescribed for urinary tract infections (40.3%), respiratory tract infections (38.4%) and skin and soft tissue infections (13.2%). The most common antimicrobials (97.5%) belonged to the ATC J01 class of “antibacterials for systemic use”. Conclusions: The results emphasise the need for a national guideline and education for good practice in long-term care facilities. Orv. Hetil., 2014, 155(23), 911–917.


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