Using the Global Stocktake to increase national climate policy ambition and improve implementation: Technical report

Abstract

The Paris Agreement, adopted in December 2015, aims to rapidly phase out GHG emissions to attain netzero emissions by the second half of the century, while promoting sustainable development and poverty eradication (UNFCCC 2015). The backbone of the Paris Agreement is nationally determined contributions (NDCs) representing efforts by each country to reduce national emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. Initial NDCs have been submitted by 194 country parties to the Paris Agreement; 13 parties had submitted their second NDCs as of December 22, 2021 (UNFCCC 2021). A key principle of the Paris Agreement is that no country should backslide in its stated NDC targets. That is, each country should ensure that each successive NDC represents an increase in emissions reduction and reflects the party’s highest possible ambition. The manner in which countries implement their NDCs and improve them over time will determine whether the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement is achieved. This situation presents decision-makers at national and international levels with urgent and unprecedented challenges. Climate action, despite accelerating since 2015, falls far short of the unprecedented transformation needed to limit impacts of climate change. In developing countries, the most critical limiters of ambition are access to or availability of finance, political will, and engaged citizens (UNDP and UNFCCC 2019). This report assesses domestic forces that influence climate action at the national level and the ways that they shape international governance of climate change under the UNFCCC, specifically, the Global Stocktake (GST) under the Paris Agreement. The GST is arguably the most innovative outcome of the Paris Agreement. Its overall task is to “take stock of the implementation of this Agreement to assess the collective progress towards achieving the purpose of this Agreement and its long-term goals” (UNFCCC 2015: Article 14.1). It considers mitigation and adaptation, along with their means of implementation and support, in the context of equity and the best available science, and it serves as an ambition-raising mechanism for the Paris Agreement. The first GST began at the end of 2021 and will culminate in 2023. Starting in 2023, the GST will occur every five years in three stages: (1) collection of information, (2) technical assessment of submitted information, and (3) consideration of outputs. The GST will inform NDCs but will not review their adequacy. Nor will it consider whether the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement is adequate or should be changed. The task of the GST is not to redefine the purpose of the agreement, but rather to ascertain whether its implementation is achieving that purpose. Governments alone will not succeed in achieving this purpose—hence the importance of understanding the opportunities for civil society to enhance domestic actions and international cooperation on climate actions. This report describes the approach of the study (Section 2), the relationship between climate ambition and the UNFCCC (Section 3), key barriers to and facilitators of increased ambition (Section 4), and key assessment criteria underlying the analysis of sections 3 and 4 (Section 5). Section 6 presents options, including the independent Global Stocktake (iGST), for civil society to enhance the GST and its outputs. Section 7 links exchanges with the case study countries to international climate change negotiations.