Insights from the latest UNEP Emissions Gap Report and UNFCCC NDC Synthesis Report 

This joint UNFCCC and UNEP event featured high-level opening remarks from the UNEP Executive Director and the UNFCCC Executive Secretary and a presentation of the key findings of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024. This was followed by a panel discussion on what we need from the next round of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), and how we can speed up climate action and implementation this decade.

The event drew on two recent UNEP and UNFCCC reports that both aim to inform countries as they prepare their next NDCs:

• The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024: No more hot air … please! – With a massive gap between rhetoric and reality, countries draft new climate commitments: The 15th edition of UNEP’s Emissions Gap Report provides an updated assessment of the gap between where we are heading in terms of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and where we need to be in 2030 and in 2035 to get on track towards the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement of limiting global warming to well below 2°C, preferably 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This year’s report focuses on what we need from the next round of NDCs and provides an updated assessment of sectoral emission reduction potentials.
• The UNFCCC 2024 NDC synthesis report summarises information from the 168 latest available nationally determined contributions communicated by 195 Parties to the Paris Agreement and recorded in the registry of nationally determined contributions as at 9 September 2024. The report provides a comprehensive picture of global climate action today, and a synthesis of the global response to climate change on all aspects of the Paris Agreement.

Participants:

Panel I: High-level remarks and presentation of the key findings of the Emissions Gap Report

• Ms. Inger Andersen, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
• Mr. Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
• Mr. Selwin Hart, Special Adviser and Assistant Secretary General for Climate Change, United Nations, TBC
• Ms. Anne Olhoff, Chief Scientific Editor of the Emissions Gap Report 2024, UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre (UNEP-CCC)

Moderator: Mirey Atallah, Chief of Adaptation and Resilience Branch, Climate Change Division, UNEP

Panel II:

• Ms. Lornaliza Kogler, Team Lead, Information Unit, Transparency Division, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
• Mr. Navroz Dubash, Steering Committee member of the Emissions Gap Report, Princeton University
• Mr. Niklas Höhne, Steering Committee member of the Emissions Gap Report 2024, NewClimate Institute
• Ms. Ploy Achakulwisut, Climate Action Team, Executive Office of the Secretary-General, TBC
• Ms. Stephanie Roe, Lead Author of the Emissions Gap Report 2024, World Wildlife Fund
• Mr. Takeshi Kuramochi, Lead Author of the Emissions Gap Report 2024, NewClimate Institute

Virtual panelists:

• Mr. Joeri Rogelj, Lead Author of the Emissions Gap Report 2024
• Ms. Minal Pathak, Lead Author of the Emissions Gap Report 2024, University of Ahmedabad
• Ms. Shonali Pachauri, Steering Committee member and contributing author of the Emissions Gap Report 2024, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis

Moderator: Anne Olhoff, Chief Scientific Editor of the Emissions Gap Report 2024, UNEP-CCC