With the historic Paris Agreement in place, Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), together with the availability of new sources of climate finance, including the Green Climate Fund (GCF), lay the groundwork for ambitious, country-driven climate action. Achieving NDC goals will require substantial investments in support of low-carbon, climate-resilient infrastructure and most of those investments will come from the private sector. The challenge going forward will be to turn NDCs into transformational action on the ground in ways that can catalyze private sector investments. Nationally...

Zero emission vehicles need to take over car market to reach 1.5°C limit: analysis Zero-emission vehicles need to reach a dominant market share by around 2035 for the world to meet the Paris Agreement’s lower warming limit of 1.5°C—and even that could be too late to avoid the need for significant negative emissions, according to new analysis by the Climate Action Tracker (CAT). This transformation of the passenger transport sector would also have to be accompanied by a decarbonisation of the power sector to ensure the electric vehicles (EV) are truly emissions free. In the first of its...

This “Brown to Green” report by Climate Transparency provides a comprehensive overview and assessment for the G20 countries, whether - and how well - they are doing on the journey to transition to a low carbon economy. The report draws on publicly available information and makes use of the assessment work of the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) (operated by NewClimate Institute, Climate Analytics, Ecofys and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research), Germanwatch’s Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) and the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). It summarises and compares the findings...

The Paris climate agreement aims at holding global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius and to “pursue efforts” to limit it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. To accomplish this, countries have submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) outlining their post-2020 climate action. Here we assess the effect of current INDCs on reducing aggregate greenhouse gas emissions, its implications for achieving the temperature objective of the Paris climate agreement, and potential options for overachievement. The INDCs collectively lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to where current...

The Paris Agreement is expected to have an unprecedented impact on the global economy in the 21st century. As the international community commit to reaching net zero emissions during the second half of the century, the impacts on the private sector will be far-reaching. This report looks at the linkages between the Paris Agreement and countries’ NDCs and the business implications in renewable energy markets, carbon pricing, management of climate risks, and resilience building. For this We Mean Business report in partnership with BSR, NewClimate Institute were responsible for collecting and...

Aside from national and sub-national governments taking action against climate change, large potential for emission reductions exists in the corporate sector. More and more companies are making commitments to contribute to the long-term targets of the Paris Agreement. These include, for instance, pledges to source electricity from renewables, stop sourcing commodities causing deforestation, and increasing energy efficiency across various sectors. This report estimates how large the contribution towards bending the emissions curve to “well below 2°C” from five representative initiatives – RE100...

The Allianz Climate and Energy Monitor ranks G20 member states on their attractiveness as potential destinations for investment in low-carbon electricity infrastructure. It takes into account their current and future investment needs in line with a 2° C global warming trajectory. Consistency with the Paris Agreement, negotiated by 195 countries at the end of 2015, would require a full decarbonization of the global economy before the end of the century. This transformation will be particularly challenging for the energy sector – the largest source of carbon emissions. Every existing and new...

Publication in Local Environment Assessing the concept's cultural legitimacy among stakeholders in the solar energy sector While energy-sector emissions remain the biggest source of climate change, many least-developed countries still invest in fossil-fuel development paths. These countries generally have high levels of fossil-fuel technology lock-in and low capacities to change, making the shift to sustainable energy difficult. Tanzania, a telling example, is projected to triple fossil-fuel power production in the next decade. This article assesses the potential to use internationally...

This paper outlines what the Paris Agreement means for Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) and what needs to happen at the country level now and in the longer term to implement the Agreement. The paper focuses explicitly on the mitigation part of national contributions and discusses specific steps in response to the relevant parts of the agreed framework including a view on how these may be supported internationally.

This document presents a synthesis of the main challenges and lessons learned from the preparation process of intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) by Parties to the UNFCCC in the run up to Paris. The challenges and lessons learned from the INDC preparation process hold great relevance for the next steps regarding the implementation and further development of countries’ nationally determined contributions (NDCs), in terms of both clarity and ambition. The report is based on the research NewClimate Institute (NCI) has conducted during the INDC preparation process, including two...

Of the 156 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted to the UNFCCC by the closure of COP 21 and the adoption of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, at least 78% of these INDCs included conditions. In most cases Parties submitted a conditional contribution alongside an unconditional contribution,but approximately one third of INDCs include only a conditional contribution. This briefing paper by NewClimate Institute concisely presents the key information and aspects on the conditionality of countries‘ mitigation contributions in their INDCs. It gives an overview of the...

The long-term global climate goals of the Paris Agreement adopted by nearly 200 countries in December 2015, imply enhanced efforts for greenhouse gas emissions reductions in Germany. The phrasing of the long term goals of the Paris Agreement goes beyond prior political consensus. The objective is to limit the global increase in temperature to “well below 2°C” above pre-industrial levels, “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”, as well as to lower the net GHG emissions to zero in the second half of the century. The aim of this brief analysis is to translate the goals of the...