Nationally Determined Contributions: Material climate commitments and discursive positioning in the NDCs

Abstract

In the lead‐up to the 2015 Conference of Parties meeting in Paris, 186 countries, representing over 95% of global emissions, submitted Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The NDCs outline national goals for greenhouse gas emission reductions and identify financial needs for unfolding mitigation and adaptation efforts. In this study, we review various analyses of the NDCs that cover the aggregate impact and strength of emissions reduction commitments and discuss recent literature on the adequacy and sectoral focus of the NDCs. We then argue that the NDCs are more than just goal setting reports; they are important discursive documents that are contested, negotiated, and ongoing. To supplement the existing literature, we examine the discursive narratives embedded in the NDCs from the 19 founding nations of the Climate Vulnerable Forum and the top 10 greenhouse gas emitters. Our literature review of quantitative and sectoral aspects of the NDCs highlights the inadequacy of the NDC commitments in the context of limiting warming to 2°C, discusses the uncertainties in the promised mitigation strategies, and identifies the reliance of many countries on policies such as those on forests or renewable energy. Our own analysis of the discourses in the NDCs adds critical depth by highlighting the stark contrasts in NDC discourses between North and South, as well as between historical emitters and emerging economies. These contrasts reflect deeper debates regarding justice and equity between nations within the UNFCCC negotiations. This article is categorized under: Climate and Development > Decoupling Emissions from Development

Engagement with health in national climate change commitments under the Paris Agreement: a global mixed-methods analysis of the nationally determined contributions

“…26 However, there were significant differences in the aspects of the Paris Agreement that countries with low health engagement emphasised in their NDCs compared with countries with high engagement. Our results indicated that NDCs with no or low levels of health engagement had a narrower focus on emissions, energy use, and the UNFCCC framework than countries with higher levels of health engagement mentioned in their NDCs with terms such as greenhouse_gas, emissions_level, base_scenario, and energy_consumption (figure 4; appendix pp [15][16]. The emphasis on the Paris Agreement was shown by terms such as level_conference and kyoto_protocol.…”

“…The most statistically distinct terms appeared in NDCs with low levels of engagement with health, with a HES between 0 and 1, compared with the most statistically distinct terms that appeared in the NDCs with a HES between 2 and 5. We did an additional keyness analysis that compared the differences in the content of NDCs with high and low engagement with health in the appendix (pp [14][15][16][17]. The keywords identified in the keyness analysis were closely related to issues included in the Paris Agreement.…”

“…These variables included the size of a country's population, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, and The data for most of these variables came from the World Bank's world development indicators. 23 The democracy measure combined freedom house and polity scores, 16 the air pollution measure was from WHO's data for average country exposure to ambient air pollution based on concentrations of fine particle matter (PM 2•5 ), 4 and the population-weighted temperature change variable, which measured average temperature change experienced by human populations, was from the report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. 24 We used data from 2016, as most NDCs were published in that year, and fill any missing observations with data from the years 2014 or 2015.…”

“…14,15 Hence, the NDCs can be read as political texts that "reveal deeper tensions, ideas, and values about international climate policy". 16 Against this background, we examine how public health is incorporated in the NDCs, and how different patterns of engagement might be related to broader inequalities and tensions in global climate politics. We address this question by examining: (1) the extent and types of engagement with health, (2) the factors that are associated with different levels of health engagement and, (3) whether there are broader differences between NDCs with higher health and lower health engagement.…”

Potential Climate Change Risks to Meeting Zimbabwe’s NDC Goals and How to Become Resilient

“…Under the Paris Agreement, nations have agreed to national mitigation actions to contain temperatures to within 2 • C above pre-industrial levels while aiming for a limit of 1.5 • C [12]. These contributions vary [13] with criticism leveled against ambition [14], their incremental tightening [15] and relative responsibility [13].…”