Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
10/30/2015
An analysis of all Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has confirmed that they are not enough to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees Celsius, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, announced at a press conference Friday morning. “Without these INDCs we would be on track for a temperature rise of anywhere between 4 to 5 degrees centigrade,” she said. “With these INDCs fully implemented we are looking at a temperature rise by 2100 of certainly under 3. … That is good news because it does mean that we are moving in the right direction that we have a very, very important first step, and we’re moving in the direction of bringing the temperature down toward the final defense line the governments have established of staying under 2 degrees.”
The synthesis report on the aggregate effect of the INDCs analyzes all pledges submitted to the UNFCCC before Oct. 1. The INDCs are public commitments made by countries regarding what they intend to do to combat global climate change. The UNFCCC had asked countries to submit these plans by the end of March, well ahead of the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP21) to be held in Paris in December, at which time a new international climate agreement is hoped to the struck.
The new report analyzes 119 INDCs representing the climate ambitions of 147 countries, the European Union having submitted one INDC for all of its member states. The countries that have submitted INDCs represent 75 percent of the parties to the UNFCCC and accounted for 86 percent of global emissions in 2010, according to the report.
Determining the exact effect the INDCs will have on global temperature rise is difficult for several reasons, including that the commitments submitted by many developing nations are conditional, stating the pledges put forth can only be met with financial support from the developed world. This is of little importance, Figueres said, noting that only 25 percent of emissions reductions put forth in the INDCs have been conditional.
“Many countries have been healthily conservative in what they have put on the table, and that’s very understandable because they do not want to expose themselves prematurely internationally, although they know that they may be able to and are pretty clearly able to go far beyond,” she said. “We may get more from some corners and less from others, so … I think the main message here is that there is a very, very impressive movement away and down from 4 degrees or 5 degrees.”
Figueres also stressed the need for the Paris agreement to include review periods into the future at which time countries can reassess what they have done and potentially increase the ambition of their commitments. “We already know that these INDCs do not get us to under 2 degrees, and governments know this as well. We do have a commitment from governments that is already evident in the text of not only staying with these INDCs but actually of, within the Paris agreement itself, of already building a path of progressive incremental effort, of continuous improvement, if you will, for there to be a periodic review, a marker, a checkpoint, in which countries would come together … to assess for themselves how are they doing on the progress of getting onto the 2-degree pathway and then how much more effort is possible at that point in time,” she said.
