Beyond national climate action: the impact of region, city, and business commitments on global greenhouse gas emissions

Abstract

This article quantifies the net aggregate impact in 2030 of commitments by individual non-state and subnational actors (e.g. regions, cities and businesses, collectively referred to as 'NSAs') to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The analysis was conducted for NSAs operating within ten major emitting economies that together accounted for roughly two-thirds of global GHG emissions in 2016. Our assessment includes 79 regions (e.g. subnational states and provinces), approximately 6,000 cities, and nearly 1,600 companies with a net emissions coverage of 8.1 GtCO 2 e/year, or a quarter of the ten economies' total GHG emissions in 2016. The analysis reflects a proposed methodology to aggregate commitments from different subnational (i.e. regional and city government) and non-state (i.e. business) actors, accounting for overlaps. If individual commitments by NSAs in the ten high-emitting economies studied are fully implemented and do not change the pace of action elsewhere, projected GHG emissions in 2030 for the ten economies would be 1.2-2.0 GtCO 2 e/year or 3.8%-5.5% lower compared to scenario projections for current national policies (31.6-36.8 GtCO 2 e/year). On a country level, we find that the full implementation of these individual commitments alone could result in the European Union and Japan overachieving their nationally determined contributions (NDCs), while India could further overachieve its unconditional NDC target. In the United States, where the national government has rolled back climate policies, NSAs could become a potential driving force for climate action. Key policy insights. Full implementation of reported and quantifiable individual commitments by regions, cities and businesses (NSAs) in ten major economies could reduce emissions by 3.8%-5.5% in 2030 below current national policies scenario projections.. National governments' mitigation targets could be more ambitious if they would take NSA commitments into account. With full implementation of such action, the European Union and Japan would overachieve their NDC targets. For the United States such action could help meeting its original 2025 NDC target in spite of rollbacks in national climate policies.. The full universe of NSA climate action expands far beyond the subset of commitments analysed in this study; NSAs could become a strong driving force for enhanced action towards the Paris climate goals.

Correcting course: the emission reduction potential of international cooperative initiatives

“…Combined, the ICIs addressed roughly 36-39 GtCO 2 e across various sectors. This study serves as a companion paper to Kuramochi et al (2020), which estimated the aggregate GHG emissions reductions resulting from the full implementation of individual NSA targets (1.2-2.0 GtCO 2 e/year compared to a current policy baseline in 2030) for the same economies. This analysis employs the same Current National Policies (CNP) baseline scenario as Kuramochi et al (2020), but uses distinctive datasets, methodologies, and approaches to quantify the potential GHG emission reduction impacts from full implementation of ICI goals.…”

“…This study serves as a companion paper to Kuramochi et al (2020), which estimated the aggregate GHG emissions reductions resulting from the full implementation of individual NSA targets (1.2-2.0 GtCO 2 e/year compared to a current policy baseline in 2030) for the same economies. This analysis employs the same Current National Policies (CNP) baseline scenario as Kuramochi et al (2020), but uses distinctive datasets, methodologies, and approaches to quantify the potential GHG emission reduction impacts from full implementation of ICI goals. In this article, ICIs are defined as international activities outside the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) driven by coalitions made up of national governments, companies, non-governmental organizations, academia, international organizations or other non-state and subnational actors (Blok et al, 2012;Roelfsema et al, 2018).…”

ClimActor, harmonized transnational data on climate network participation by city and regional governments

“…Cities and regions- defined as subnational administrative units generally broader in population and area than cities and the first administrative level below national governments 1 - are increasingly engaged in global climate change governance. They hold the majority of the world’s population and are at high risk for experiencing the impacts of climate change 2 .…”

“…These subnational actors are pledging their own largely voluntary climate actions, which include setting emissions reduction targets, increasing renewable energy consumption, and financing for energy efficiency and other technology upgrades 3 . While some of these actions support implementation of national climate policies 4 , many subnational actors participate in transnational climate initiatives that engage actors working across borders towards shared goals 5 , 6 , and often in collaboration with national governments 1 . The EU Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, for example, includes more than 9,000 primarily small cities in Europe (population less than 50,000) to commit to emission reduction targets more ambitious than the European Union’s own pledges 7 .…”

“…This information can be used to avoid double-counting commitments reported across several different platforms and to facilitate explorations of subnational engagement with transnational climate initiatives. It can also help determine what commitments are not subsumed within a nested jurisdiction but instead in addition to (i.e., “additional”) to what a higher level of government has pledged, if any (i.e., if New York City and New York State both make climate pledges, understanding their nested relationship would allow for an analyst to make an evaluation of whether actions at the lower level are truly in addition to what a higher level of administration has pledged) 1 .…”