The new context of the Paris Agreement - particularly the universal commitment to regularly make increasingly ambitious contributions towards the global effort - present new challenges for carbon market stakeholders, especially for host countries. This guide proposes a number of considerations which countries hosting emission reduction activities should take into account when engaging in carbon markets under the Paris Agreement. It looks especially at how carbon market engagement relates to other aspects of national climate policy making and the fulfilment of commitments under the Paris regime...

Colombia faces a number of challenges including growing need for social housing in metropolitan areas driven by accelerating urbanisation associated with a growing electricity demand as well as increasing hydroelectric uncertainty as a result of changes in the el Niño weather phenomenon. At the same time, Colombia actively implementing its NDC under the Paris Agreement. These include measures to improve energy efficiency in the residential sector overall. Policies for renewable electricity, building codes, and appliance energy performance standards all play a role in these efforts. However...

The transition of CERs issued under the CDM for use by Parties towards their NDCs is a key outstanding issue for Article 6 negotiations at the UNFCCC. To inform the ongoing negotiations, we set out estimates of the potential CER supply by two groups of modelling teams, from research institutes in Japan and Germany. This paper presents an updated analysis of the potential supply of CERs issued for emission reductions occurring in the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol between 1 January 2013 and 31 December 2020 based on a selection of possible restrictions for their transition. Main...

The end of 2020 marks a fundamental change in the global governance of greenhouse gas emissions with the shift from the Kyoto Protocol era to that of the Paris Agreement. This has important implications for the future role and the feasible models of the voluntary carbon market. In this report – commissioned by the German Emission Trading Authority (DEHSt) at the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) – we analyse a number of options and offer key recommendations on the future role for voluntary carbon markets after 2020. Main findings: A critical focus of our analysis is whether and how “double...

This final report covers the results from a research project led by Öko-Institut and jointly conducted with other international experts such as from the Stockholm Environment Institute. The project was initiated against the background that policy-makers at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) are considering the detailed rules of a scheme to address carbon dioxide emissions from international aviation: the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA). Main findings: This research project analyses matters that are critical for implementing CORSIA...

This report analyses the momentum of targets for net-zero emissions across companies, cities and regions worldwide. We seek to unravel the ambiguity of net-zero targets to better enable the identification of truly ambitious actors and enhance support towards them. We offer recommendations for increasing target transparency with the aim of achieving greater accountability and ambition. Main Findings: 1. Net zero momentum is accelerating: The number of net-zero pledges from cities regions and companies has roughly doubled in less than a year since late 2019 As of October 2020, actors with net...

The rising importance of cities, states and regions, firms, investors, and other subnational and non-state actors in global and national responses to climate change raises a critical question: to what extent does this climate action deliver results? This article published in Climate Policy journal introduces a conceptual framework that researchers and practitioners can use as a template to assess the progress, implementation, and impact of climate action by sub- and non-state actors. Main Findings: The proposed framework is used to review existing studies that track progress, implementation...

This report presents an overview of recently adopted climate policies, climate-relevant responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and a state of play of NDC and LTS submissions in 25 countries and regions. The policy information compiled by NewClimate Institute, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an update of a previous report published in June 2019, and supplements the December 2019 report on the projected greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions under currently implemented policies and mitigation commitments. Main Findings...

In this briefing, the Climate Action Tracker examines the COVID-19 recovery packages of five major emitters – China, EU27, India, South Korea and the USA; we present the global temperature update, taking into account the economic impact of COVID-19; and we share key insights from the updated assessments for 13 of the 36 countries assessed by the Climate Action Tracker, including projections of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on 2020 emissions. This briefing provides a directional analysis as to what we could expect in terms of emissions developments in the future, considering that COVID-19...

Financial institution’s climate-related investment targets have rapidly grown in recent years. In this report, we provide insights into the magnitude and ambition of these targets, and investigate their relationship with GHG emissions in the real economy. Specifically, this report maps out the financial sector’s climate-related investment targets against a range of indicators, such as monetary investments in ‘green’ projects, and required ‘green’ investments and GHG emission reductions. It thereby considers both climate-related investment pledges made by individual financial institutions as...

A growing number of subnational and corporate actors set net-zero emissions targets. These include some of the world’s largest companies, and hundreds of cities and regions around the world. This paper provides a summary of the momentum of target setting among these subnational and corporate actors. Main Findings: The shift towards net-zero greenhouse gas emission pathways is accelerating. An increasing number of subnational and corporate actors are setting net-zero emission targets. These encompass: 823 cities and 101 regions, which represent more than 828 million people across every...

As the key European public finance institution, including in the EU’s COVID-19 response measures, the EIB can and should play a prominent role in the decarbonisation of the transport sector, especially in its aspiration to be the “EU Climate Bank”. Our analysis of the EIB's transport investment portfolio since 2015, finds that about half of transport-related investments are clearly “aligned” with the Paris Agreement. We propose Paris alignment evaluation criteria, including key factors to take into consideration, and a number of investment priorities for the EIB to not only align all its...

A growing number of countries and companies are setting climate neutrality and net-zero targets. Many countries’ and companies’ efforts towards climate neutrality play a positive role contributing to the fight against climate change and reducing global emissions. However, some of these commitments only obscure the actual impact and ambition of actual climate efforts. In order to enable citizens, investors, consumers and other stakeholders to make an informed judgement, it is crucial that countries and companies are transparent about what exactly their target covers and how they intend to reach...

Climact and NewClimate Institute explored a future in which the EU effectively targets zero emissions by 2040 for the transport sector, in a study commissioned by Greenpeace. Radical change needs to happen now and all fronts to dacarbonise European mobility within 20 years - seeing that the sector accounts for more than a quarter of European emissions (27%). We present a decarbonisation pathway, highlight current policy gaps and propose required policy packages. Main Findings: While supply-side measures are undeniably essential to reducing emissions, this study illustrates how demand-side...

This report assesses the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated recovery measures on emissions out to 2030 and global emission pathways towards meeting the Paris climate goals (‘what-if’ scenarios). Furthermore, the study reviews the most recent insights published in the literature on post-COVID emissions projections and green recovery trajectories, and provide a framework for analysing the ‘greenness’ of recovery packages, using Germany as a case study. Main Findings: This report assesses the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated recovery measures on emissions out...

This article quantifies the potential greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions resulting from the full implementation of major international cooperative initiatives’ (ICIs) goals. We develop criteria to select the most significant ICIs to aggregate, and propose novel methodologies to quantify emission reduction impacts and account for overlaps between them. The analysis was conducted for 17 initiatives, across eight sectors and ten major emitting economies accounting for roughly two-thirds of global GHG emissions in 2019. ICIs are international activities outside the UNFCCC driven by cities...

A major question of international climate policy is which countries have to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by how much. As ambitious global climate policy has been delayed for long, emissions now have to be reduced in all countries as fast as possible. Considerations whether the national emission pathway itself is in line with the responsibility and capability of that country moves more and more into the background. It is now more a question of who pays for the transition, not where it is happening. In this paper with Fraunhofer ISI, we argue that only the combination of assessments on...

This paper examines the broad policy frameworks that can support the development and upscaling of Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) without diverting attention from ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reductions and, in particular, whether CDR can be supported by offsetting schemes. Setting separate emission reduction and removal targets may be a way to achieve this. The paper was funded by the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G), which is an initiative of the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs. Context and approach: The special report on the 1.5°C temperature limit by...