Catalyzing mitigation ambition under the Paris Agreement: elements for an effective Global Stocktake

Abstract

The Global Stocktake (GST) takes a central role within the architecture of the Paris Agreement, with many hoping that it will become a catalyst for increased mitigation ambition. This paper outlines four governance functions for an ideal GST: pacemaker, ensurer of accountability, driver of ambition and provider of guidance and signal. The GST can set the pace of progress by stimulating and synchronizing policy processes across governance levels. It can ensure accountability of Parties through transparency and public information sharing. Ambition can be enhanced through benchmarks for action and transformative learning. By reiterating and refining the long term visions, it can echo and amplify the guidance and signal provided by the Paris Agreement. The paper further outlines preconditions for the effective performance of these functions. Process-related conditions include: a public appraisal of inputs; a facilitative format that can develop specific recommendations; high-level endorsement to amplify the message and effectively inform national climate policy agendas; and an appropriate schedule, especially with respect to the transparency framework. Underlying information provided by Parties complemented with other (scientific) sources needs to enable benchmark setting for collective climate action, to allow for transparent assessments of the state of emissions and progress of a low-carbon transformation. The information also needs to be politically relevant and concrete enough to trigger enhancement of ambition. We conclude that meeting these conditions would enable an ideal GST and maximize its catalytic effect. Key policy insights. The functional argument developed in this article may inspire a purposeful design of the GST as its modalities and procedures are currently being negotiated.. The analytical framework provided serves as a benchmark against which to assess the GST's modalities and procedures.. Gaps and blind spots in the official GST can and should be addressed by processes external to the climate regime in academia and civil society.

Transparency requirements under the Paris Agreement and their (un)likely impact on strengthening the ambition of nationally determined contributions (NDCs)

“…9 In the lead-up to the Paris Climate Conference, some Parties pushed for the inclusion of an ex-ante review of NDCs that would help clarify whether pledges are sufficient (van Asselt, Saelen, & Pauw, 2015). However, the idea of such a review was integrated in the global stocktake, which is an ex-post review that focuses on collective rather than individual efforts (Gupta & van Asselt, 2019;Hermwille, Siemons, Förster, & Jeffery, 2019;Milkoreit & Haapala, 2019).…”

Reducing Global Environmental Uncertainties in Reports of Tropical Forest Carbon Fluxes to REDD+ and the Paris Agreement Global Stocktake

“…Yet despite these achievements in increasing national forest area monitoring capacity, our analysis shows that uncertainties about national forest carbon fluxes will still constrain monitoring of the implementation of the UNFCCC's REDD+ mechanism, and monitoring of the implementation of its Paris Agreement in the Global Stocktake, which is due to combine the net emissions of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) from many countries to compare their collective warming effect with the Paris Agreement goal. Until now, only a limited amount of research has been carried out into the Global Stocktake [96], so our findings contribute to what will hopefully soon be a rapidly evolving literature.…”

Climate Ambition and Sustainable Development for a New Decade: A Catalytic Framework

“…The year 2023 is important for making progress on the evaluative functions of the GCAA (and every five years thereafter), as the first ‘global stocktake’ will be held under the Paris Agreement to assess ‘collective progress’, and to inform subsequent NDCs (Hermwille et al, 2019). In their assessments, governments should integrate data on climate actions into national target setting and implementation, including national GHG projections, and new and enhanced NDCs.…”