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New analysis by NewClimate Institute shows that whilst Japan's draft INDC achieves a significant amount of benefits for the economy and the domestic population through cost savings and reduced deaths from air pollution, the scale of the potential benefits from more ambitious action that are missed by the limited ambition of the draft INDC is much greater. By 2030, Japan could achieve and annual cost savings of around USD 25 billion, could save approximately 15,000 premature deaths each year from reduced ambient air pollution, and could support an extra 67,000 full time equivalent jobs in the...

Press release from the Climate Action Tracker: The combined climate plans for the G7 and EU have made a small step towards the right track to hold warming to 2°C, but there is still a substantial emissions gap, the Climate Action Tracker said today. Ahead of the upcoming G7 meeting in Germany, the Climate Action Tracker - an analysis carried out by four research organisations including NewClimate Institute - has looked at the combined INDCs of all G7 governments and the EU, who are responsible, in aggregate, for around 30% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 40% of global GDP. Read the full...

The updated results of NewClimate Institute’s research to track the preparation of INDCs are now published. View the results As delegates gather in Bonn for the UNFCCC climate change conference, a new wave of submissions of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the UNFCCC’s INDC portal are expected to be announced during the course of the two-week negotiations. By the end of June, approximately 58% of global GHG emissions are expected to be covered by submissions, as revealed in the latest update of research from NewClimate Institute. All countries have been asked to present...

Press release from the Climate Action Tracker: Under its INDC, Canada proposes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% below 2005 levels in 2030. This translates to a 21% reduction below 2005 emissions levels excluding forestry, or 2% below 1990 levels. Read the briefing from the Climate Action Tracker See the full assessment of Canada's INDC Canada accounts for 10% of the world’s forests. Current projections indicate that it is likely to generate substantial emissions credits in 2030 from activities in the forestry sector. Using forestry credits, it could avoid reducing emissions from other...

Read more at the CAT Website See CAT assessment of submitted INDCs The Climate Action Tracker has developed a new method to assess “comparable efforts” and the “fair share” of governments’ national greenhouse gas reduction proposals. Such a comparison is essential for the successful completion of an agreement on climate change in Paris in December this year, as some governments have made their offers conditional on comparable action by others. For the first time, the method we have developed provides a comprehensive overview of many different viewpoints on what could be considered a “fair”...

Research by NewClimate Institute assesses the co-benefits achieved by the INDCs of the EU, China and the U.S., and reaffirms that taking more action faster has significant co-benefits. View the report In March, countries began to submit their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) for the new international climate change agreement, which is expected to be agreed at the 21 st Conference of Parties in Paris in December 2015. Analysis of INDC preparations worldwide show that a second wave of these proposed national contributions should be expected by June, with a third larger wave...

The updated results of NewClimate Institute’s research to track the preparation of INDCs are now published. View the results The first wave of submissions of Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the UNFCCC’s INDC portal due in March is likely to cover only less than a third of global emissions, but already in June they are likely to reach over half, as now revealed by research from NewClimate Institute. This allows for a constructive negotiation process on the contributions during 2015. All countries have been asked to present an emissions reduction proposal, which would...

The first results of NewClimate Institute’s research for UNFCCC and UNDP to track the preparation of INDCs are now published. View the results Last week, Switzerland became the first country in the world to submit their Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to the UNFCCC’s INDC portal. A first wave is expected by end of March. A second wave of submissions is expected in September, as now revealed by research from NewClimate Institute. All countries have been asked to publicly outline what actions they intend to take under a global climate agreement (an Intended Nationally...

The European Commission has made a proposal that specifies its “intended nationally determined contribution” (INDC) to the new international agreement on climate change. The proposal is to reduce domestic greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% below 1990 in 2030. However, it now also includes forestry accounting, which could effectively weaken the reductions necessary by all others sectors by a few percentage points. The original proposal of domestic reductions of 40% is already less ambitious than the range of what studies find to be the EU’s fair contribution to the global effort to limit...

One of the most fundamental questions of a future international agreement on climate change will be on which countries will contribute how much to the global effort to combat climate change. With the first round of discussions under the Ad-hoc Durban Platform in 2015 in Geneva in early February, Parties have heralded the next critical phase of the negotiations leading towards a new global climate agreement which is to cover numerous elements such as mitigation, adaptation, finance, loss & damage and others. Guided by the principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities and Respective...

Briefing, 11 February 2015 Niklas Höhne (NewClimate Institute), Michel den Elzen (PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency), Annemiek Admiraal (PBL) This briefing provides an overview on the feasibility and implications of phasing out net global greenhouse gas emissions. It was prepared in the framework of the ACT 2015 project. Download the briefing as PDF What is meant with “net phase out of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions”? Net phase out of GHG emissions means that anthropogenic emissions [1] of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere decrease to a level equal to or smaller than...

The latest update to the Climate Action Tracker has been released, showing that the current level of global climate change mitigation ambition reduces the projected warming trajectory to +2.9° C - 3.1° C. It is the first time since 2009 that the Climate Action Tracker has calculated a discernibly lower temperature increase than previously estimated, due to proposed post-2020 actions. The latest update shows the effect of recently announced pledges to be a warming increase of 2.9° C - 3.1° C, whilst projections from current policies remain significantly above this. The chart shows that the...

NewClimate Institute supported a training on Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in the Maldives organised by GIZ. The training gave the participants an understanding of the concept of NAMAs in the international and the domestic context. It highlighted specific aspects to be considered for the development of NAMAs, for example, financing and MRV. During the three-day workshop, the participants developed various NAMA ideas in the energy, waste, transport and fishery sectors, with the support of Hanna Fekete from NewClimate Institute and GIZ trainers. Maldives is a Small Island...

Within the Climate Action Tracker project, NewClimate Institute, Climate Analytics, PIK and Ecofys prepared an initial assessment of the recent announcements by the United States and China’s new pledges and proposals on emissions reductions for 2025 and 2030, in the context of the present international negotiations for a new climate agreement to be adopted at the end of 2015. The announcement of increased ambition by the biggest emitters China and the United States one year ahead of the Paris Climate Summit in 2015 is a very important political development. It begins to close the gap between...

In preparation of the new international climate agreement to be adopted in Paris in 2015, all countries are asked to put offers on the table on how and how much they are willing to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions after 2020, so called “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs). In order to achieve an ambitious and equitable agreement, INDCs of countries with similar circumstances will have to be judged by others to be equally ambitious. Illustrating that this is the case will be fundamental to the success of the new climate agreement, because countries will want to be sure...