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The results are presented from a survey of national legislation and strategies to mitigate climate change covering almost all United Nations member states between 2007 and 2012. This data set is distinguished from the existing literature in its breadth of coverage, its focus on national policies (rather than international pledges), and on the use of objective metrics rather than normative criteria. The focus of the data is limited to national climate legislation and strategies and does not cover subnational or sectoral measures. Climate legislation and strategies are important because they can: enhance incentives for climate mitigation; provide mechanisms for mainstreaming; and provide a focal point for actors. Three broad findings emerge. First, there has been a substantial increase in climate legislation and strategies between 2007 and 2012: 67% of global GHG emissions are now under national climate legislation or strategy compared to 45% in 2007. Second, there are substantial regional effects to the patterns, with most increases in non-Annex I countries, particularly in Asia and Latin America. Third, many more countries have adopted climate strategies than have adopted climate legislation between 2007 and 2012. The article concludes with recommendations for future research.Policy relevance The increase in climate legislation and strategy is significant. This spread suggests that, at the national level, there is some movement in reshaping climate governance despite the relatively slow pace of global negotiations, although the exact implications of this spread require further research on stringency of actions and their implementation. Asia and Latin America represent the biggest improvements, while OECD countries, which start from a high base, remain relatively stagnant. Implications of regional patterns are further refined by an analysis by emissions, which shows that some areas of low levels of legislation and strategy are also areas of relatively low emissions. A broad trend toward an emphasis on strategies rather than legislation, with the significant exception of China, calls for enhanced research into the practical impact of national non-binding climate strategies versus binding legislation on countries' actual emissions over time. ; GoVNAMAs - Phase I

ABSTRACTOne of the most fundamental questions surrounding the new Paris Agreement is whether countries? proposals to reduce GHG emissions after 2020 are equally ambitious, considering differences in circumstances between countries. We review a variety of approaches to assess the ambition of the GHG emission reduction proposals by countries. The approaches are applied illustratively to the mitigation part of the post-2020 climate proposals (nationally determined contributions, or NDCs) by China, the EU, and the US. The analysis reveals several clear trends, even though the results differ per individual assessment approach. We recommend that such a comprehensive ambition assessment framework, employing a large variety of approaches, is used in the future to capture a wide spectrum of perspectives on ambition.POLICY RELEVANCEAssessing the ambition of the national climate proposals is particularly important as the Paris Agreement asks for regular reviews of national contributions, keeping in mind that countries raise their ambition over time. Such an assessment will be an important part of the regular global stocktake that will take place every five years, starting with a ?light? version in 2018. However, comprehensive methods to assess the proposals are lacking. This article provides such a comprehensive assessment framework.

This policy brief presents recommendations on how to align future COVID-19 fiscal response measures with the Paris Agreement's long-term temperature goal globally, in the EU and, where data are available, also for selected Nordic countries. This brief is based on the findings of a research project supported by the Nordic Council of Ministers Working Group for Climate and Air (NKL), entitled: "The impact of COVID-19 and recovery packages on emission pathways to 2030". This research project has been prepared as a specific contribution to the 2021 edition of the UNEP Emissions Gap Report.

The "South - North Dialogue" Proposal, developed by researchers from developing and industrialised countries, outlined equitable approaches to mitigation. These approaches were based on the criteria of responsibility, capability and potential to mitigate, and include deep cuts in industrialised (Annex I) countries and differentiated mitigation commitments for developing countries. This paper quantitatively analyses the implications of the proposal for countries' emissions and costs. The analysis focuses on a "political willingness" scenario and four stabilisation scenarios. The analysis shows that stringent stabilisation targets imply that many developing countries would have to take on quantitative mitigation obligations by 2030, even when the Annex I countries take on ambitious mitigation commitments far beyond the Kyoto obligations. The "political willingness scenario" will probably not suffice to limit a warming of the Earth's atmosphere to below 2 °C.

The adoption of the Paris Agreement with the long-term temperature limit has important repercussions for the distribution of effort between its signatories. The application of the equity and least-cost approaches to the distribution effort leadsto different outcomes. The disparity of the results from the equity and cost-effectiveness approaches can be closed by granting support to those countries for which least cost approach indicates much deeper emissions reduction than equity approaches. Since the transformation away from fossil fuels towards renewables can contribute to meeting a number of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the specific socio-economicand politicalcircumstances need to be taken into consideration when distributing emissions reduction effortand supporting. Contrary to the socio-economic framework which with few exception changes only slowly, the political environmental within which climate mitigation is taking place may change rapidly. These changes –positive and negative –have a spillover effect on other countries. This effect takes place even if the external impacts of a policy are not the explicit objective of certain policies (or lack thereof). But it can be considerably strengthened if domestic climate mitigation effort is accompanied with active leadership and support of transfer agents. The spillover effect creates an opportunity for the EU to influence emissions reductions well above those targeted by its own measures. Thus,it is essential for the EU to further specify its emissions reduction goal for 2050, adopt an ambitious emissions reduction goal for 2030, and create a robust policy framework to reach these goals.