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EMISSIONS GAP REPORT 2018 – BRIDGING THE GAP: STRENGTHENING NDCS AND DOMESTIC POLICIES
Box 4.1 Examples of enhanced mitigation ambition in NDCs
Several Parties have either enhanced the ambition of their NDCs relative to their INDCs or have articulated their intent to do so.2
For instance, Morocco has moved from
a 13 percent to a 17 percent unconditional reduction in GHG emissions relative to a business-as-usual scenario by 2030, while increasing its conditional target from 31 to 41 percent. Argentina and Indonesia have also adopted more modest increases in GHG target stringency. Likewise, Morocco, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Uruguay have adopted new commitments and actions, while Mali has adopted an unconditional GHG target in addition to its existing conditional target (Fransen et al., 2017).
Ultimately, as domestic policy has the power to control emissions, through regulation or economic incentives, ambitious NDC goals will be irrelevant unless domestic policy follows suit. Nevertheless, the ambition reflected in NDCs is also important because it signals to the international community the contribution that the country intends to make to solve the global issue of climate change, and it delineates the commitments on which the country will report to the international community. This section therefore outlines options for increasing ambition both in NDCs and in domestic policy.
An NDC with enhanced mitigation ambition can be defined as an NDC that “if fully implemented, would result in lower cumulative [GHG] emissions than the fully implemented existing NDC” (Fransen et al., 2017). Furthermore, it is argued that “ambition should be viewed as a combination of target-setting, preparedness to implement, and a capacity to sustain further reductions over time” (Levaï and Baron, 2017). While both definitions consider the impact on cumulative emissions, the latter more explicitly considers a time frame to mid-century, as well as implementation capacity.
4.3 Options for Parties to enhance mitigation ambition
Chapters 2 and 3 presented detailed estimates of the level of GHG emissions that will occur in future years if a country implements its NDC, and if it continues to implement its current domestic policies. The two seldom match, for multiple reasons. First, countries may need time – often many years – to adopt and begin to implement the domestic policies necessary to achieving the targets contained in their NDCs. In the meantime, NDCs will reflect a higher level of mitigation ambition (that is, lower future emissions) than current domestic policies. In other cases, countries may establish relatively conservative NDCs, and then, through domestic policies or other economic trends, find themselves on track to over-deliver. In these cases, NDCs will reflect a lower level of mitigation ambition (that is, higher future emissions) than will domestic policies. Finally, some Parties intend to purchase offsets to close any gap between their domestic policy ambition and their NDC commitments, in which case current policies would reflect future emissions that were higher than NDC targets, but which would be offset.
There are a number of ways in which a country could reflect enhanced mitigation ambition in its NDC: figure 4.1 illustrates four categories of options for doing so (based on Fransen et al. (2017)). First, a country could strengthen its existing GHG target, for example by increasing its stringency, expanding the sectors and gases that it covers or strengthening its modalities, such as those related to land-sector accounting or market mechanisms. It could also adopt a new GHG target. Second, it could pursue similar options vis-à-vis sectoral non-GHG targets, such as those to enhance renewable energy or energy efficiency or to limit deforestation. Third, a country could opt to strengthen or expand the policies and actions mentioned in its NDC. At sufficient scale, this could enhance the NDC’s overall ambition, as well as providing confidence in the country’s preparedness to implement. Finally, the country could commit to an implementation pathway that will sustain GHG reductions over the long term, limiting cumulative emissions.
These options are not mutually exclusive and whether an NDC revision results in enhanced ambition according to the definitions above depends on the scale of the revision, rather than how it is articulated in the NDC. It is important for countries to consider a wide range of options, in order to identify those that are most meaningful and practical in their unique circumstances, and in order to enable deep emission reductions.
2
https://www.wri.org/blog/2018/04/insider-whats-changing-countries-turn-indcs-ndcs-5-early-insights.
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