The Emissions Gap Report 2017

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.

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 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.

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.

This is the tenth edition of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report. It provides the latest assessment of scientific studies on current and estimated future greenhouse gas (GHG) 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” has become known as the ‘emissions gap’. Reflecting on the ten-year anniversary, a summary report, entitled Lessons from a decade of emissions gap assessments, was published in September for the SecretaryGeneral’s Climate Action Summit. The summary findings are bleak. Countries collectively failed to stop the growth in global GHG emissions, meaning that deeper and faster cuts are now required. However, behind the grim headlines, a more differentiated message emerges from the ten-year summary. A number of encouraging developments have taken place and the political focus on the climate crisis is growing in several countries, with voters and protestors, particularly youth, making it clear that it is their number one issue. In addition, the technologies for rapid and cost-effective emission reductions have improved significantly.

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.

Can—and should—participation be a means of achieving sustainability? The concepts of sustainability and participation are both in vogue, and many international, supranational and national legal texts and standards refer to these two concepts. However, there are still several unanswered questions that invite legal inquiry: which sustainability? Which kinds of participation? Participation by whom? How are the two concepts of sustainability and participation effectively interlinked in legal provisions? This book approaches the interconnection between sustainability and participation inductively and precisely in areas of law which are commonly associated with sustainability and sustainable development: national, European and international environmental and economic law.