How climate targets compare against a common baseline
Greenhouse-gas emissions, tonnes of CO2 equivalent, bn Four largest emitters in each group
New climate announcements are coming thick and fast. In recent weeks dozens of countries updated the mitigation plans known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) required under the Paris climate agreement of 2015. The deal obliges its signatories to increase the ambition of their NDCs every five years. The original deadline for the first round of updates was COP26, the UN climate summit in Glasgow in 2020. However, because of the covid-19 pandemic, the event’s start was delayed until October this year. So far, 58% of the 191 signatories have submitted new NDCs.
Countries’ climate targets come in many shapes and sizes. Around two-thirds of the global economy is now covered by a pledge to achieve “net-zero”1 emissions by around midcentury. The array of different benchmarks and definitions can obscure how ambitious each country actually plans to be.
One type of climate goal involves promising to cut emissions compared with a business-as-usual scenario. Pakistan promises a cut of 20% by 2030, compared with a pathway where no climate action is taken whatsoever. Yet this goal means its emissions could surge threefold by 2030.
Rebasing climate targets changes the relative ambition of rich countries, too. On the face of it, the European Union’s target of lowering emissions by 55% by 2030 is more ambitious than America’s 52% cut. But the EU’s goal is based on 1990 levels and its emissions have already fallen from that point. By contrast, America’s plan is based on 2005 levels, and its emissions have fallen by less since. Once put on the same basis, America’s goal appears more admirable.
(www.economist.com, 07.08.2021. Adaptado.)
¹“net-zero”: (of a country, city, etc.) removing as many emissions as it produces.
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