Bridging The Emissions Gap

The UN Environment Emissions Gap Report assesses the latest scientific studies on current and estimated future greenhouse gas emissions and compares these with the emission levels permissible for the world to progress on a least-cost pathway to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. This difference between “where we are likely to be and where we need to be” is known as the ‘emissions gap’. The report explores some of the most important options available for countries to bridge the gap.

This publication has been prepared by the scientific editors of the UN Environment Emissions Gap Reports: John Christensen (UNEP DTU Partnership) and Anne Olhoff (UNEP DTU Partnership). UN Environment warmly thanks all the authors, the members of the steering committee and the reviewers of the emissions gap assessments over the past 10 years for their invaluable contributions. This year, UN Environment will publish the tenth edition of the annual Emissions Gap Report. To mark the 10-year anniversary and as a contribution to the United Nations Secretary-General's Climate Action Summit, this publication revisits the gap rationale and how it has evolved, comparing the expectations following the Copenhagen Accord with the reality 10 years later. The findings are sobering. Despite a decade of increasing political and societal focus on climate change and the milestone Paris Agreement, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have not been curbed, and the emissions gap is larger than ever. The challenges for the United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit and for international climate change negotiations in 2019 are clear. Unless mitigation ambition and action increase substantially and immediately in the form of new or updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs) by 2020 and are reflected in ambitious long-term GHG development strategies, exceeding the 1.5°C goal can no longer be avoided, and achieving the well-below 2°C temperature goal becomes increasingly challenging. These and other key lessons emerging from a decade of Emissions Gap Reports are summarized under the 10 headings of this publication.

The focus of this edited volume is to identify challenges facing organizations in achieving zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and a new energy economy, and to explore solutions from various sectors of the economy to enable the transition to a zero emissions future. Research presented here is divided into three parts, with an introductory statement on growth and sustainability. Part one discusses strategies towards a sustainable economy under a zero emissions goal. Part two contains industry specific case studies focusing on construction and related activities. Part three is devoted to country specific case studies from the Asia-Pacific region. Each of the chapters address one or more of the following issues: restoration, mitigation, adaptation and/or promoting resilience in the face of climate change as part of achieving a sustainable economy. The volume is multi-disciplinary in nature, drawing on various disciplines in social science, business, environment and policy, and will be of interest to UN development agencies, academic institutions, government policy makers, NGOs and business leaders.

Seminar paper from the year 2023 in the subject Politics - Environmental Policy, grade: 1,5, University of London, course: Climate change and environmental hazards, language: English, abstract: 196 parties adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015 to curb global warming. Delivering on those commitments will require not just incremental sector-by-sector change, but wide-ranging, largescale, rapid and systemic transformation (UNEP 2022). Germany, as the biggest emitter of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) in the EU, has to play a lead role in this endeavor. This policy brief addresses current obstacles and practical proposals for successful mitigation and adaptation actions.

This 9th edition of the UN Environment Emissions Gap Report assesses the latest scientific studies on current and estimated future greenhouse gas emissions and compares these with the emission levels permissible for the world to progress on a least-cost pathway to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. This difference between "where we are likely to be and where we need to be" is known as the 'emissions gap'. As in previous years, the report explores some of the most important options available for countries to bridge the gap.

The UN Environment Emissions Gap Report assesses the latest scientific studies on current and estimated future greenhouse gas emissions and compares these with the emission levels permissible for the world to progress on a least-cost pathway to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. This difference between “where we are likely to be and where we need to be” is known as the ‘emissions gap’. The report explores some of the most important options available for countries to bridge the gap.

This report confirms and strengthens the conclusions of previous analyses that current pledges and commitments fall short of set goals. It further says that, as emissions of greenhouse gases continue to rise rather than decline, it becomes less likely that emissions will be low enough by 2020 to be on a least-cost pathway towards meeting the 2° C target. As a result, after 2020, the world will have to rely on more difficult, costlier and riskier means of meeting the target. The further from the least-cost level in 2020, the higher these costs and the greater the risks will be. If the gap is not closed or significantly narrowed by 2020, the door to many options to limit temperature increase to 1.5° C at the end of this century will be closed, further increasing the need to rely on accelerated energy-efficiency increases and biomass with carbon capture and storage for reaching the target.