Detailed assessments of the state of progress on GHG emission trends and targets can be expected in the lead-up to COP26, and it can already anticipate some of the headline conclusions: Firstly, country commitments as reflected in enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) will be insufficient to put the world on track to achieve the collective “well below 2°C”. Furthermore, concrete policies and actions adopted by countries on the ground will not be sufficient to achieve these NDC targets. These headline conclusions will be very important to guide the conversations at COP26, highlighting to the general public the need to further accelerate action and exerting pressure on negotiators to reach a COP26 decision that reflects the imperative of this acceleration.

With this event, however, IDDRI is presenting a report that adopts a different, complementary, perspective on climate ambition. It seeks to guide effectively the progressive increase of ambition, as organized by the cycles process of the Paris Agreement. To this aim, it open the box of emission pathways, by considering the multidimensional feasibility conditions that will enable the required far-reaching and systemic transformation towards the long-term goal. This requires to move away from a purely global perspective to reflect the heterogeneous nature of transformations and the multi-faceted aspects of transitions in different sectors and countries. The analysis of the report is therefore primarily conducted through the lens of country and sector perspectives, with the objective to assess progress made and identify remaining critical blocking points and obstacles that would need to be overcome in order to improve the capacity of the country or the sector to align its ambition with the Paris Agreement mitigation objective. Iddri is publishing the report “Climate ambition beyond emission numbers: taking stock of progress by looking inside countries and sectors”, which adopts a different, bottom-up, perspective on #climate ambition, with 26 country and 3 sector chapters.

This new report analyses whether beyond the symbolic political statements, there are clear, concrete and credible signs of progress suggesting that the #ParisAgreement process can be effective to achieve its goals. It also proposes an illustration for an implemented cross-cutting, bottom-up assessment of collective progress and projected ambition, 2 years before the Global Stocktake.

The objective of this report is to assess the progress made and identify blocking points and obstacles that would need to be overcome in order to improve the capacity of the country or sector to align its ambition with the #ParisAgreement mitigation objective.