Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
10/23/2015
An analysis of climate pledges made by more than 150 of the world’s countries has revealed that if they are met the increase of global energy-related emissions would slow to a “relative crawl” of around .5 percent per year by 2030, according to a report released this week by the International Energy Agency. However, the pledges are not enough to cause these emissions to come to a halt, “a critical and urgent milestone to achieving the global climate goal,” the report says.
The report analyzes all Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as of mid-October. These INDCs will comprise the bulk of a new global climate agreement hoped to be struck at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) of the UNFCCC taking place in Paris in December.
The INDCs take many different forms, making it difficult to analyze them, the report says. “The forms of pledges put forward in the INDCs include absolute GHG emissions targets, deviation from ‘business-as-usual’ emissions trajectories, emissions intensity targets (i.e. GHG emissions per unit of economic output), reductions or limitations in per-capita emissions, or statements regarding policies and measures to be implemented. A number of pledges are conditional, at least partially, on financial support or other factors,” the report explains.
However, some conclusions can be drawn from the INDCs even in their varied forms. “Growth in energy sector GHG emissions slows dramatically, if INDCs are implemented fully. A complete analysis of the INDCs submitted for COP21 reveals that the global energy- and process-related emissions increase by 3.7 gigatonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalents (Gt CO2-eq) from 2014 to 2030, one-third of the increase observed since 2000 (11.2 Gt CO2-eq),” the report finds. This shift will be due to a decrease in demand growth of fossil-fuels and an increase in the share of low-carbon fuels in the energy mix to around one-quarter in 2030, the report says, also noting an increase in the use of natural gas and decrease in the use of oil and coal.
Further, the analysis finds a breakdown of the link between GHG emissions and economic growth. “Climate pledges help to broaden the necessary decoupling between economic growth and energy-related GHG emissions – emissions per unit of economic output being 40 [percent] lower than today by 2030,” the report finds.
While the findings of the analysis indicated a promising step forward toward the goal of a decarbonized future, they do not go far enough to meet the international goal of limiting global temperature increase to 2-degrees Celsius, the report states. “If climate ambition is not raised progressively, it is estimated that the path set by the INDCs would be consistent with an average global temperature increase of around 2.7 degrees Celsius,” the report says. “The INDCs must therefore be viewed as an important base upon which to build ambition.”
