Publications

Briefing for airClim on Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) under the Kyoto Protocol and Marrakech Accords.

Aggregations of greenhouse gas mitigation pledges by countries are frequently used to indicate whether resulting global emissions in 2020 will be 'on track' to limit global temperature increase to below specific warming levels such as 1.5 or 2 °C. We find that historical emission levels aggregated from data that are officially reported by countries to the UNFCCC are lower than independent global emission estimates, such as the IPCC SRES scenarios.

By simply summing up their communicated numbers, developed country Parties so far meet their collective commitment of USD 30 billion for the period 2010-2012. This result however is distorted as countries discretionally decide which funding is eligible to be counted as fast-start finance (FSF). Clarification on the notion of additionality will be needed to assess what is really delivered as fast-start finance.

This analysis demonstrates that the Copenhagen Accord and the pledges made under it represent a set of dissonant ambitions. Due to the limited level of ambition by 2020, the ability to limit emissions afterwards to pathways consistent with either the 2 or 1.5 °C goal is likely to become less feasible.

This briefing paper examines the overall mitigation pledges made under the Copenhagen Accord against the perspective of limiting warming to either the 2°C or 1.5°C goals, and looks at which levels of mitigation levels are needed, before concluding with an initial discussion of the implications for Africa