Nations have reached a historic agreement to protect the world’s oceans following 10 years of negotiations.
The High Seas Treaty aims to place 30% of the seas into protected areas by 2030, to safeguard and recuperate marine nature.
The agreement was reached on Saturday evening, after 38 hours of talks, at UN headquarters in New York.
The negotiations had been held up for years over disagreements on funding and fishing rights.
The last international agreement on ocean protection was signed 40 years ago in 1982 – the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
That agreement established an area called the high seas – international waters where all countries have a right to fish, ship and do research – but only 1.2% of these waters are protected.
Marine life living outside these protected areas has been at risk from climate change, overfishing and shipping traffic.
In detail: The plan to protect the high seas
In the latest assessment of global marine species, nearly 10% were found to be at risk of extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
These new protected areas, established in the treaty, will put limits on how much fishing can take place, the routes of shipping lanes and exploration activities like deep sea mining – when minerals are taken from a sea bed 200m or more below the surface.
Environmental groups have been concerned that mining processes could disturb animal breeding grounds, create noise pollution and be toxic for marine life.
The International Seabed Authority that oversees licensing told the BBC that “any future activity in the deep seabed will be subject to strict environmental regulations and oversight to ensure that they are carried out sustainably and responsibly”.
Rena Lee, UN Ambassador for Oceans, brought down the gavel after two weeks of negotiations that at times threatened to unravel.
Minna Epps, director of the IUCN Ocean team, said the main issue was over the sharing of marine genetic resources.
Marine genetic resources are biological material from plants and animals in the ocean that can have benefits for society, such as pharmaceuticals, industrial processes and food.
Richer nations currently have the resources and funding to explore the deep ocean but poorer nations wanted to ensure any benefits they find are shared equally.
Dr Robert Blasiak, ocean researcher at Stockholm University, said the challenge was that no one knows how much ocean resources are worth and therefore how they could be split.
He said: “If you imagine a big, high-definition, widescreen TV, and if only like three or four of the pixels on that giant screen are working, that’s our knowledge of the deep ocean. So we’ve recorded about 230,000 species in the ocean, but it’s estimated that there are over two million.”
Laura Meller, an oceans campaigner for Greenpeace Nordic, commended countries for “putting aside differences and delivering a treaty that will let us protect the oceans, build our resilience to climate change and safeguard the lives and livelihoods of billions of people”.
“This is a historic day for conservation and a sign that in a divided world, protecting nature and people can triumph over geopolitics,” she added.
Countries will need to meet again to formally adopt the agreement and then have plenty of work to do before the treaty can be implemented.
Liz Karan, director of Pews Trust ocean governance team, told the BBC: “It will take some time to take effect. Countries have to ratify it [legally adopt it] for it to enter force. Then there are a lot of institutional bodies like the Science and Technical Committee that have to get set up.”
Hosted at the company’s international headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, Delta Air Lines has stated that the ‘sustainable skies lab’ will host teams working to both scale and improve existing technologies and those working on “revolutionary” technologies which do not yet exist commercially. Research, design and testing will all be possible at the lab.
On existing technologies, the aim of the lab is to “connect, align, showcase” and accelerate work already underway at Delta by enabling co-working between teams on issues such as electrifying ground equipment and improving operational efficiencies.
Like many other airlines, Delta is using a mix of changes to operational procedures and aircraft upgrades to drive fuel efficiency, with 10 million fewer gallons of fuel used in 2022 than in 2021 by the firm. Older planes including its Boeing 777s have been retired to make way for next-gen aircraft including the A350 and the A300-900neo. Delta claims that these aircraft are 20% more fuel-efficient in terms of fuel used per passenger, per mile travelled.
For technologies that do not yet exist commercially, such as large electric passenger planes and hydrogen passenger planes, the lab will facilitate partnerships aimed at accelerating development. Delta is already partnering with some large aircraft manufacturers, such as Airbus, as well as emerging aircraft innovators like electric plane firm Joby. There will also be partnerships between the private sector and academia.
The strategy for the lab is being spearheaded by Delta’s chief sustainability officer Pam Fletcher. She is being supported by a new council including specialists from across the business, including those working in technical operations, flight operations, fuel, fleet management and customer service.
On collaborating for technology breakthroughs, Fletcher said: “With aviation being a hard-to-decarbonise industry, none of us can do this alone.
“We’re rolling out the welcome mat for disruptors of choice to take advantage of Delta’s global resources to accelerate our path to decarbonization and a fully sustainable travel experience.”
Target evolution
Delta committed to becoming a net-zero business by 2050 in 2021, through the UN-backed Race to Zero initiative. It subsequently had emissions targets for 2035 approved by the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) as aligned with ‘well below 2C’. These targets entail cutting direct emissions (Scope 1) plus indirect emissions from jet fuel by 45%, on an intensity basis, against a 2019 baseline.
Delta is hoping to achieve verification under the SBTi’s net-zero standard, which will require it to strengthen its targets with a commitment for a 90% reduction across all scopes by 2050. The SBTi is notably in the process of phasing out ‘well below 2C’ targets through to 2025, with 1.5C targets needed for net-zero standard verification.
Fletcher has stated that, to meet its climate targets, Delta will need to consider different low-carbon solutions across different timelines. A blog post published in September 2022 by Fletcher states that the company is improving fuel efficiency and electrifying ground operations now, while also cutting single-use plastics. In the medium term, its approach is to scale sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) production in partnerships across the industry and with governments, to bring down costs. The, in the long-term, hydrogen and electric aircraft could be commercialised.
“We’re optimistic about early-stage companies pushing the boundaries with futurist thinking on aircraft, propulsion and more, and look forward to fostering collaboration with the industry, academia, and start-ups to accelerate the sustainable future of flight,” Fletcher’s blog states.
Airlines in the UK are, by and large, following the Government’s strategy on decarbonisation – the Jet Zero Strategy. The Strategy bets heavily on efficiencies and SAF. Last month, the UK Government provided its latest tranche of funding for SAF developers, focusing on energy-from-waste and fuels created from carbon captured at industrial plants.
Humanity is falling short of its climate goals. More investment is urgently needed—especially in the next decade—to transition to a low-carbon economy. The IPCC estimates that achieving a low-carbon transition will require US$1.6-$3.8 trillion annually between 2016 and 2050 for the supply-side energy system alone. Alongside ambitious emissions reductions from their own carbon footprints, funding from businesses—including carbon credit purchases, philanthropy, and impact capital—can be catalytic in scaling investment in the climate solutions necessary to achieve a just and sustainable 1.5°C future. The impact in play is enormous. For example, natural climate solutions have the potential for capital flows greater than $100 billion annually, with opportunity across the world and especially in the Global South.
Significant momentum exists: Many organizations and initiatives are already working with funding from businesses to deploy climate solutions. The BASCS offers an opportunity to help connect and support these initiatives and the surrounding community of practice by providing a central, neutral platform for businesses and experts to meet, learn, discuss, and act together.
The work will be grounded in core principles:
Emissions Reduction: BASCS members prioritize work to reduce their own emissions in line with a science-based target (e.g., through the SBTi) and pursue high impact climate investments that go even further to curb climate change. Members will seek scalable solutions to help make hard-to-achieve reductions feasible in the future. Climate solutions funding is a complement rather than a substitute for science-based emissions reductions.
Ambition to Action: BASCS members work to catalyze and deepen investments in global emissions reductions, avoided emissions and removals across and beyond value chains (e.g., mobilizing others in the corporate sector to invest alongside us).
Measurable Impacts: BASCS members support applying sound and verified methodologies to ensure high social and environmental integrity of investments. Carbon credits claimed by companies must represent additional, real, quantifiable, and verifiable emissions reductions or removals, and must not be double counted.
Co-Benefits: BASCS members support investments that deliver environmental and social integrity and co-benefits and have strong safeguards, in addition to driving real greenhouse gas emissions reductions. Members will seek investments that quantify these co-benefits when possible.
BASCS seeks to serve and engage all organizations working to scale and improve climate solutions opportunities for business investment. To learn more and engage with the Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions, please visit scalingclimatesolutions.org
Founder Commentary
Amazon “As part of our commitment to The Climate Pledge, Amazon is on our way to achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, which is good for the planet, people and our business. We remain focused on driving decarbonization strategies throughout our business, as well as investing in additional and quantifiable natural climate solutions to remove carbon and tackle climate change. We look forward to continuing to work across sectors with BASCS to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.” – Kara Hurst, Vice President, Worldwide Sustainability
BSR “In this Decisive Decade, we need urgent climate action to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and achieve an inclusive net zero economy. BSR is proud to serve as the secretariat for the Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions, advising the initiative in its effort to unlock finance for much needed climate solutions. We believe collaborations such as BASCS are key to transforming climate ambition into meaningful action and scaling impact.” – Aron Cramer, President and CEO
Disney “The Walt Disney Company is committed to protecting the planet and delivering a positive environmental legacy for future generations as we operate and grow our business. Transitioning to a low carbon economy demands fundamental changes in the way society, including the private sector, operates and innovates. Collaborating with other members of BASCS will create opportunity to scale high quality climate solutions necessary to drive a more sustainable future.” – Vijay Sudan, Executive Director, Enterprise Social Responsibility, The Walt Disney Company
EDF “The time is now for companies to take bold action on climate change. We have 10 years to dramatically reduce emissions and there is no way we can achieve a stable climate without stopping deforestation. The Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions can help close the climate funding gap and speed resources to protect what is most valuable. It is the kind of visionary leadership and action we need from the world’s biggest and most influential companies.” – Elizabeth Sturcken, Managing Director, EDF+Business
Google “At Google, we were the first major company to become carbon neutral in 2007 and we’ve met this commitment for over a decade. We look forward to working with the BASCS to share our learnings and accelerate our collective work to decarbonize.” – Kate Brandt, Google Sustainability Officer
Microsoft “The climate crisis is the defining challenge of our lifetimes. If we are to achieve a 1.5-degree Celsius future, we will all need to work together. Today, we are joining the Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions, working with other members to accelerate the maturation and scale of a range of climate solutions.” – Elizabeth Willmott, Carbon Program Manager, Microsoft.
Netflix “Netflix has committed to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2022. We will get there by reducing our internal emissions in line with climate science and by investing in the power of nature to retain and reduce emissions from the atmosphere, starting with natural ecosystems like forests above-and-below water. Scaling up the highest quality projects to “retain” and “reduce” emissions is best done collaboratively, which is why we look forward to this timely collective effort taking flight.” – Emma Stewart, Netflix Sustainability Officer
Salesforce “The time for climate action is now. Every business, government and individual must step up to the urgent challenge of climate change and to create an inclusive and sustainable future for all. At Salesforce we believe that business can be one of the greatest platforms for change. That is why we are proud to be a founding member of BASCS, an initiative to rapidly scale and improve climate solutions funding from businesses.” – Patrick Flynn, Head of Sustainability at Salesforce
UNEP “Drastically reducing deforestation and simultaneously restoring forests is the single largest nature-based opportunity for climate mitigation. UNEP is therefore proud to be a co-founder of the Business Alliance to Scale Climate Solutions, supporting the private sector’s climate ambitions for deep cuts in their own emissions – working towards high-integrity outcomes for carbon neutrality by 2050 or sooner.” – Susan Gardner, Director of the Ecosystems Division
Workday “We are committed to a 1.5 degrees Celsius science-based target, but we know there is still much more work to be done, and one of the most powerful ways we can accelerate climate action is by coming together with other organizations. This alliance is an opportunity to collaborate with others who share our vision to increase the scale and impact of climate solutions funding, so we can achieve a zero-carbon future.” – Erik Hansen, Senior Director, Environmental Sustainability, Workday
WWF “To tackle the climate crisis, we need to act immediately to drive climate emissions down. BASCS highlights that business must set science-based targets for their own emissions while bringing the investment in solutions to scale. WWF is excited to help found this clearing house for collaborative learning and support companies to make impactful investments to tackle the climate crisis.” – Marcene Mitchell, Senior Vice President for Climate Change
The end of 2020 marked the moment, under the Paris Agreement’s “ratchet mechanism”, when nations were supposed to formally submit more ambitious commitments for cutting their emissions.
However, just 45 “parties” (44 countries, plus the EU’s 27 member states viewed as one bloc) met this deadline.
After a year disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, nations representing only around 28 per cent of global emissions registered new or updated “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) on the UN’s official registry by the end of the year.
Some big emitters did register their NDCs in time, including the UK and EU. But major absences included the US, India and China.
Informal consultations at COP25 Madrid. Credit: Kiara Worth | IISD/ENB.
Even among the new submissions, many showed no increase in ambition since the first pledges made five years ago, or even backtracked with scaled-back proposals.
Here, Carbon Brief analyses the various new pledges and how they add up. However, one expert tells Carbon Brief that, while there was reason for hope among the new NDCs, the collective plans are still “totally off” what is required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s global warming targets.
Why were new climate pledges expected in 2020?
Every party that signed up to the Paris Agreement has to commit to a target for cutting its share of global emissions, known as its NDC, every five years.
In the run up to the COP21 climate summit in Paris, most nations had submitted intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs), which automatically became their first NDCs unless parties chose to submit updated versions.
A few countries like North Korea and Panama chose to hold off and submit their NDCs after ratifying the Paris Agreement.
According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), 190 parties, including the 27 EU member states, have now submitted first NDCs. A handful, including Iran, Iraq and Turkey have yet to do so.
Most of the pledges to reduce emissions within the NDCs were communicated as percentage reductions from a fixed baseline by a fixed year, although some, notably China and India, based theirs on cuts in “emissions intensity of GDP”. To add to the confusion, nations picked different starting points and target years.
Crucially, the initial round of INDCs was not enough to meet the climate targets set out in Paris, a point acknowledged at the time by world leaders.
Estimates suggest they would set the planet on a course for around 3C of warming, rather than the 2C or stretch target of 1.5C that nations had agreed in Paris in 2015.
Now, five years after the Paris Agreement was adopted, countries are obliged to renew and upgrade their NDCs. This is the first test of the “ratchet mechanism” embedded in the agreement, which seeks to scale up the ambition of pledges over time.
The chart below shows the progress some of the world’s major economies have made in cutting emissions from a baseline of 1990 – which is used by the EU and UK.
The coloured dotted lines indicate a linear trajectory of necessary further cuts to meet their NDC targets for 2030. China and India’s GDP-based NDCs are not shown, but the light grey line indicates the progress China, the UK and the EU must make towards their net-zero targets.
Change in greenhouse gas emissions, per cent, from 1990 for a selection of key economies, with rough pathways to NDC (coloured dotted lines) and net-zero (light grey dotted lines) targets based on a simplified and indicative linear trajectory, not actual projections of future emissions pathways. Historical emissions data includes all greenhouse gases and land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), but only goes as far as 2017, which impacts the trajectory of NDC and net-zero targets. Unlike other parties, the US has not submitted a 2030 NDC yet so its pathway only goes to 2025. China and India do not have NDCs expressed as emissions percentage reductions, so their NDC pathways are not included. The EU’s net-zero trajectory is difficult to see as it follows a similar trajectory to its NDC pathway. Source: Climate Watch. Charts made by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.
This chart, meanwhile, shows the progress some of the world’s major economies have made in cutting emissions from a baseline of 2005, which is used by the US.
Change in greenhouse gas emissions, per cent, from 2005 for a selection of key economies, with rough pathways to NDC (coloured dotted lines) and net-zero (light grey dotted lines) targets based on a simplified and indicative linear trajectory, not actual projections of future emissions pathways. Historical emissions data includes all greenhouse gases and land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF), but only goes as far as 2017, which impacts the trajectory of NDC and net-zero targets. Unlike other parties, the US has not submitted a 2030 NDC yet so its pathway only goes to 2025. China and India do not have NDCs expressed as emissions percentage reductions, so their NDC pathways are not included. The EU’s net-zero trajectory is difficult to see as it follows a similar trajectory to its NDC pathway. Source: Climate Watch. Charts made by Carbon Brief using Highcharts.
In line with the Paris Agreement, nations that only set an initial NDC covering the period up to 2025, such as the US, must now produce one that goes to 2030, and those that already contained a 2030 target must “communicate or update” their NDCs.
The agreement also states “the efforts of all parties will represent a progression over time” and will reflect the “highest possible ambition”.
However, as the text does not explicitly require new pledges to be submitted if they already run to 2030, there is room to interpret it as meaning that previous NDCs can be re-communicated. Adopting clearer language on the need for ambition was a contentious topic at COP25 in 2019.
“There is a legal dispute on what is allowed and what is not allowed, Prof Niklas Höhne from Climate Action Tracker (CAT) tells Carbon Brief, adding that nevertheless he sees it clearly:
I would argue that in the last five years, for example, renewables have become much, much cheaper than they were projected five years ago, so the situation is completely different and every country can go back and check whether they can do a little bit more.
Niklas Höhne, founder, Climate Action Tracker
Parties were initially asked in the decision text following the Paris Agreement to inform the UN of their new NDCs nine to twelve months before the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow so that the UNFCCC secretariat could prepare a synthesis report based on their contents.
Just three nations representing around 0.1 per cent of the world’s emissions met this deadline.
This “symbolic” date was ultimately delayed after the Covid-19 pandemic led to the COP’s postponement.
Instead, the UNFCCC announced it would publish an initial version of the NDC report by 28 February 2021, based on the NDCs in its registry as of 31 December 2020. The report will then be updated with any new information closer to COP26.
While some nations expressed concerns about their capacity to assemble new NDCs by the end of the year, a letter written in August 2020 by UNFCCC executive secretary Patricia Espinosa made it clear that the end-of-year deadline was still considered important.
“I strongly encourage Parties to submit their updated or new NDCs in accordance with this timeline,” she wrote.
Which nations have announced new targets?
The table below shows the nations that heeded Espinosa’s advice and made their new announcements by 31 December 2020.
The EU, Russia, Brazil, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Argentina, Mexico, Zambia and the UK are the only economies each contributing around 1 per cent or more of global emissions that have announced new targets.
However, as analysis by CAT indicates, some nations that met the deadline merely restated past commitments or made new ones that did not substantially increase ambition. (See section below.)
Many of the first countries to come forward with updated NDCs were small island states and other nations that are highly exposed to climate impacts, but contribute very little to global emissions. The Marshall Islands, for example, submitted its new NDC almost two years earlier than most other parties.
Also included in the table are nations that have indicated an intention to “enhance ambition or action in new or updated NDCs”, as recorded by the WRI’s Climate Watch resource.
This group contains an additional 82 nations, accounting for around 33per cent of total emissions.
Many of these commitments came from an announcement made at COP25 by 103 countries to “enhance ambition of their NDCs by 2020”.
China, the world’s largest emitter, remains the biggest omission from the table, although its leader Xi Jinping announced at a UN climate ambition summit in December that his nation would aim for carbon neutrality by 2060 and scale up its 2030 NDC in line with this. However, China has yet to formally register its new NDC with the UN.
China’s proposed NDC changes include a cut to the CO2 intensity of its GDP by more than 65per cent from 2005 levels, compared to its earlier target of 60-65per cent. While this marks an increase in ambition, it suggests that – in the short term and depending on assumptions about GDP growth – China’s emissions cuts will be modest. (See Carbon Brief’s analysis of China’s new 2030 pledge.)
Meanwhile, the US does not appear in the table above, although president-elect Joe Biden is expected to set out plans for a new NDC after he has taken office later this month and the US re-joins the Paris Agreement.
Other major emitters that have not come forward with new plans include India, Indonesia, Iran, Canada, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Collectively, these six nations contribute around 17per cent of global emissions.
Do the new pledges reflect an increase in ambition?
Submission of a new NDC does not automatically mean a more ambitious commitment and commentators have pointed out that several of the plans released by large countries fall short of what is required.
At the “climate ambition summit” hosted online last month by the UN, UK and France to mark the fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, 45 nations came forward with enhanced NDCs.
According to Taryn Fransen, an international climate change policy expert at WRI, there has been a “mixed bag” so far, with the EU and UK in particular taking a “significant step up”.
She notes that a number of Latin American countries have also raised their ambition, including Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru.
Prof Niklas Höhne from CAT tells Carbon Brief that, while the situation is “much better” than he would have imagined six months ago, “it is still not sufficient”.
We have several countries that have submitted the same thing or even [gone] backwards, so there’s still a lot to do this year…What’s very clear is that we are not a little bit off we are totally off when you add all the different pledges of countries.
Niklas Höhne,founder, Climate Action Tracker
NDCs from major economies have been analysed by CAT to assess whether or not they represent an increase in ambition from previous commitments.
Lower ambition: Brazil and Mexico
Brazil has been the subject of extensive criticism for producing a new NDC that not only fails to raise ambition, but uses an accounting “trick” to make its initial pledge less ambitious.
The nation says it will cut emissions by 43per cent over the next decade compared to 2005 levels, the same as its previous proposal.
However, methodological changes in the emissions inventory since the first pledge was made mean this is now a considerably higher starting point.
The Climate Observatory, a Brazilian NGO, estimates this would mean an additional 400m tonnes of CO2e (MtCO2e) being released in 2030 compared to the original 2015 plan.
As of 2017, Brazil’s total annual emissions were around 1.4bn tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2).
The nation has also mentioned a potential 2060 net-zero goal, but said this is conditional on the payment to Brazil of $10bn per year in climate finance by other countries.
In a critique of the government’s plans, WWF says this request comes “despite [Brazil] being one of the 10 largest economies in the world”.
As a result, CAT has downgraded Brazil’s NDC from “insufficient” for meeting Paris goals to “highly insufficient”. President Jair Bolsonaro was also excluded from the recent climate ambition summit due to his nation’s insufficient plans.
Fransen says Mexico has similarly submitted a new pledge, based on a business-as-usual baseline, that is weaker than its original NDC.
“In the updated NDC they have revised those [baseline] projections upwards which of course means their achieving their target will result in higher 2030 emissions than it would have before,” she says.
The NDC has also got rid of a reference to emissions peaking in 2026.
Lacking ambition: Russia and Vietnam
Russia states in its new NDC that it “demonstrates an increasing ambition compared to earlier commitments to limit greenhouse gas emissions”.
Its previous submission from 2019 contained a commitment to cut emissions by between 25-30per cent of 1990 levels by 2030.
The new one pledges to cut emissions by 30per cent. (Russia was one of the last nations to submit a first NDC, having only ratified the Paris Agreement in October 2019.)
But the ambition of this NDC is debatable given Russia’s emissions have already fallen by more than 30per cent since 1990.
Following the end of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the restructuring of the economy, the nation’s emissions dropped dramatically. But, in recent years, its emissions have been growing.
“[Russia] is basically proposing a target that would be met anyway,” says Höhne. He adds that Vietnam is also using a similar strategy.
According to CAT, Vietnam is set to “vastly overachieve its updated NDC”, as the business-as-usual emissions trajectory it is based on has been “hyper-inflated”, meaning no new policies will be required to achieve it.
Same ambition: Australia, Japan and others
Australia has faced criticism for submitting a “new” NDC without a substantial change to the old one. Therefore, it has been deemed “insufficient” by CAT.
While the new NDC states that it represents a “floor on Australia’s ambition” and that the nation “is aiming to overachieve”, energy minister Angus Taylor has said there are no plans to make a more ambitious pledge in the near future.
Other nations that have similarly made no significant changes include Switzerland and Singapore.
Japan, South Korea and New Zealand, having re-submitted their original NDCs with unchanged targets, have all announced plans to reappraise their submissions in 2021 and come forward with stronger pledges.
For the two east Asian nations, this news comes after their governments revealed plans to aim for net-zero emissions by 2050, commitments that will require new shorter term targets as well.
“I think that is a good sign of the Paris Agreement working…governments feel pressured to say ‘OK we need to do more’,” says Höhne.
How much climate finance has been requested?
Every nation that has signed up to the Paris Agreement is expected to cut its emissions, but there is an expectation that poorer nations will be helped by aid – known as “climate finance” – from richer ones.
Financing climate action is, therefore, an important component of many NDCs.
Reflecting the varying levels of detail in the NDC documents, some parties have provided precise figures for their financial requirements, while others are more vague.
The table below shows explicit mentions of international climate finance requests included in the new round of NDCs, as well as plans for domestic funding. (Carbon Brief produced a similar table of requests for international funds in the first round of NDCs in 2015.)
In the latest round, a total of $373bn in international climate financing has so far been requested by developing nations. A large chunk of this is the $236bn quoted by Ethiopia.
However, as Carbon Brief stressed in its 2015 analysis of finance requests, there are important caveats to consider when looking at the total figure. For example, the types of requests can be very varied and often not directly comparable.
Some NDCs mentioned sums of money, but did not specify whether the funds they required would be sourced domestically or internationally.
Many countries that did not include specific numbers made it clear their targets depended on some level of financial support from other countries.
Nations agreed in 2009 that they would provide climate finance of $100bn a year by 2020, primarily through the UN-backed Green Climate Fund (GCF).
The GCF has often struggled to raise enough money from richer nations. The only country that makes a specific reference to providing money to the fund in the new NDCs is Monaco.
More detail on international financial requirements will likely be revealed as more NDCs emerge in the coming months.
Fransen tells Carbon Brief that a trend she has seen with the latest NDCs is that the sums being requested are “much more robust” than the previous round. “Countries have just had a lot more time to build their capacity,” she says.
This story was published with permission from Carbon Brief.
“Our planet is broken,” the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, will warn on Wednesday.
Humanity is waging what he will describe as a “suicidal” war on the natural world.
“Nature always strikes back, and is doing so with gathering force and fury,” he will tell a BBC special event on the environment.
Mr Guterres wants to put tackling climate change at the heart of the UN’s global mission.
In a speech entitled State of the Planet, he will announce that its “central objective” next year will be to build a global coalition around the need to reduce emissions to net zero.
Net zero refers to cutting greenhouse gas emissions as far as possible and balancing any further releases by removing an equivalent amount from the atmosphere.
Mr Guterres will say that every country, city, financial institution and company “should adopt plans for a transition to net zero emissions by 2050”. In his view, they will also need to take decisive action now to put themselves on the path towards achieving this vision.
The objective, says the UN secretary general, will be to cut global emissions by 45% by 2030 compared with 2010 levels.
Here’s what Mr Guterres will demand the nations of the world do:
Put a price on carbon
Phase out fossil fuel finance and end fossil fuel subsidies
Shift the tax burden from income to carbon, and from tax payers to polluters
Integrate the goal of carbon neutrality (a similar concept to net zero) into all economic and fiscal policies and decisions
Help those around the world who are already facing the dire impacts of climate change
Source: EPA
“Our war on the natural world will come back to haunt us.”, says Mr Guterres
Apocalyptic fires and floods
It is an ambitious agenda, as Mr Guterres will acknowledge, but he will say radical action is needed now.
“The science is clear,” Mr Guterres will tell the BBC, “unless the world cuts fossil fuel production by 6% every year between now and 2030, things will get worse. Much worse.”
Climate policies have yet to rise to the challenge, the UN chief will say, adding that “without concerted action, we may be headed for a catastrophic three to five-degree temperature rise this century”.
The impact is already being felt around the world.
“Apocalyptic fires and floods, cyclones and hurricanes are the new normal,” he will warn.
“Biodiversity is collapsing. Deserts are spreading. Oceans are choking with plastic waste.”
Moment of truth
Mr Guterres will say the nations of the world must bring ambitious commitments to cut emissions to the international climate conference the UK and Italy are hosting in Glasgow in November next year.
As well as pressing for action on the climate crisis, he will urge nations to tackle the extinction crisis that is destroying biodiversity and to step up efforts to reduce pollution.
We face, he will say, a “moment of truth”.
But he does discern some glimmers of hope.
He will acknowledge that the European Union, the US, China, Japan, South Korea and more than 110 other countries have committed to become carbon neutral by the middle of this century.
He will say he wants to see this momentum turned into a movement.
Technology will help us to reach these targets, Mr Guterres will say he believes.
“The coal business is going up in smoke,” because it costs more to run most of today’s coal plants than it does to build new renewable plants from scratch, he will tell the BBC.
“We must forge a safer, more sustainable and equitable path”, the UN chief will conclude.
He will say it is time for this war against the planet to end, adding: “We must declare a permanent ceasefire and reconcile with nature.”
This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) for its “efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict,” the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced Friday.
The win draws attention to the organization at a time when the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis have increased the number of people at risk from starvation worldwide. At the same time, UN organizations including the WFP have experienced a dip in funding in recent years as countries, including the U.S., reduce the money they give to international bodies, CNN reported.
“With this year’s award, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to turn the eyes of the world towards the millions of people who suffer from or face the threat of hunger,” committee chairwoman Berit Reiss-Andersen said when she announced the prize.
The WFP was founded in 1961, according to CNN. In 2019, it provided food assistance to 97 million people in 88 countries, the most since 2012. It is also the primary UN body in charge of meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal of eliminating world hunger, the Nobel Committee pointed out, but that goal has gotten harder than ever to reach in recent years.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute director Dan Smith told CNN that the number of people experiencing hunger had begun to increase in the last four years after decades of decline, largely because of climate change.
The situation has gotten even worse because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Nobel Committee noted. In countries like Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan and Burkina Faso, the pandemic has combined with armed conflicts to put significantly more people at risk from starvation.
WFP head David Beasley told NPR earlier this year that 135 million people had been at risk for starvation in 2020 before the emergence of COVID-19. After its spread, that number had shot up to almost a quarter of a billion.
“In the face of the pandemic, the World Food Programme has demonstrated an impressive ability to intensify its efforts,” the committee said. “As the organisation itself has stated, ‘Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos.'”
Beasley said he was “speechless” in the face of the award and credited the organization’s staff for the win.
“It’s because of the WFP family,” Beasley said in a video shared on Twitter. “They’re out there in the most difficult, complex places in the world. Whether it’s war, conflict, climate extremes — it doesn’t matter. They’re out there, and they deserve this award.”
We are deeply humbled to receive the #NobelPeacePrize. This is an incredible recognition of the dedication of the @WFP family, working to end hunger everyday in 80+ countries.
The prize was announced in Oslo and comes with an award of 10 million Swedish kronor (approximately $1.14 million), The Guardian reported. This year, there were 318 nominees for the prize, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.S. President Donald Trump.
When announcing the award, the committee praised the WFP for its role in “multilateral cooperation.”
“The need for international solidarity and multilateral cooperation is more conspicuous than ever,” the committee said in the opening line of the announcement.
Smith told CNN that he thought the committee had intentionally chosen an international organization over an individual at this time to highlight the importance of collaboration.
“Donald Trump is the embodiment of the spirit of anti-cooperation and by contrast the World Food Programme is the embodiment of the spirit of cooperation,” Smith said. “And I think that the Nobel Peace Prize started its announcement with a reference to solidarity and multilateralism as a kind of gentle rebuke to the leaders of the great powers, including Donald Trump, obviously Putin and President Xi as well.”
In her remarks to the press after the award, Reiss-Andersen also criticized the rise of populilst nationalism.
“When you follow international debate and discourse, it’s definitely a tendency that international institutions seem to be discredited more than, let’s say, 20 years ago,” she said, as CNN reported. “It is part of populism that it has nationalistic flavor … everybody, every nation, supporting their own interests.”
Hot on the heels of the World Meteorological Organization’s report on greenhouse gas concentrations, the UN Environment Programme (Unep) has published its regular snapshot of how the world is doing in cutting levels of these pollutants.
The emissions gap report looks at the difference between how much carbon needs to be cut to avoid dangerous warming – and where we are likely to end up with the promises that countries have currently committed to, in the Paris climate agreement.
The UN assessment is fairly blunt. “The summary findings are bleak,” it says. “Countries collectively failed to stop the growth in global greenhouse gas emissions, meaning that deeper and faster cuts are now required.”
The report says that emissions have gone up by 1.5% per year in the last decade. In 2018, the total reached 55 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent. This is putting the Earth on course to experience a temperature rise of 3.2C by the end of this century.
How years compare with the 20th Century average
2019is on course to be in the top three warmest years
Source: NOAA
Just last year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that allowing temperatures to rise more than 1.5 degrees this century would have hugely damaging effects for human, plant and animal life across the planet.
This report says that to keep this target alive, the world needs to cut emissions by 7.6% every year for the next 10 years.
“Our collective failure to act early and hard on climate change means we now must deliver deep cuts to emissions – over 7% each year, if we break it down evenly over the next decade,” said Inger Andersen, Unep’s executive director.
The report pays particular attention to the actions of the richest countries. The group of the 20 wealthiest (G20) are responsible for 78% of all emissions. But so far, only the EU, the UK, Italy and France have committed to long-term net zero targets.
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Seven G20 members need to take more action to achieve their current promises. These include Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, South Africa and the US.
For example, Brazil’s plans were recently revised, “reflecting the recent trend towards increased deforestation”.
Three countries – India, Russia and Turkey – are all on track to over-achieve their plans by 15% but the authors of the report say this is because the targets they set themselves were too low in the first place.
For three others – Argentina, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia – the researchers are uncertain as to whether they are meeting their targets or not.
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That leaves China, the EU and Mexico as three countries or regions that are set to meet their promises or nationally determined contributions (NDCs), as they are called, with their current policies.
Without serious upgrades to most countries’ plans, the UN says the 1.5C target will be missed by a significant amount.
“We need quick wins to reduce emissions as much as possible in 2020, then stronger NDCs to kick-start the major transformations of economies and societies,” says Inger Anderson.
“We need to catch up on the years in which we procrastinated,” she added. “If we don’t do this, the 1.5C goal will be out of reach before 2030.”
The report outlines some specific actions for different countries in the G20.
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So for Argentina it’s recommended that they work harder to shift the public towards widespread use of public transport in big cities. China is urged to ban all new coal-fired power plants, something that recent research casts doubt on.
The biggest focus of action is the energy system. To get a sense of the massive scale of change that is needed, the study says the world will have to spend up to $3.8 trillion per year, every year between 2020 and 2050 to achieve the 1.5C target.
The impression that time is running short is reinforced by the report – and UN negotiators gearing up to meet in Madrid next week at COP25 are feeling the pressure to increase their ambitions on carbon.
“This is a new and stark reminder by the Unep that we cannot delay climate action any longer,” said Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for the ecological transition.
“We need it at every level, by every national and subnational government, and by the rest of the economic and civil society actors. We urgently need to align with the Paris Agreement objectives and elevate climate ambition.
“It would be incomprehensible if countries who are committed to the United Nations system and multilateralism did not acknowledge that part of this commitment requires further climate action. Otherwise, there will only be more suffering, pain, and injustice.”
