The Challenges of Assessing Collective Progress: Design Options for an Effective Global Stocktake

The paper identifies four essential functions for the Global Stocktake (GST)—acting as a policy pacemaker, ensuring accountability, driving ambition, and signaling commitment—while highlighting data gaps in NDC emissions quantification as a primary challenge. It proposes that the UNFCCC maximize GST effectiveness through public appraisals, the use of performance distributions for collective assessments, sectoral discussions in expert dialogues, and IPCC-led benchmark identification, supplemented by independent civil society and academic analysis.

• An effective Global Stocktake should serve four primary functions: acting as a pacemaker for policy processes, ensuring country accountability, driving higher ambition in future NDC cycles, and signaling a renewed commitment to the goals of the Paris Agreement.
• The assessment of collective progress via the GST is hindered by a limited mandate and significant data gaps regarding the aggregation and quantification of emissions within NDCs.
• To increase effectiveness, the UNFCCC should implement public appraisals of inputs, utilize a performance distributions approach for collective assessments, incorporate detailed sectoral system discussions into expert dialogues, and engage the IPCC to identify benchmarks from available research.

APA

NewClimate Institute (2021). The Challenges of Assessing Collective Progress: Design Options for an Effective Global Stocktake. http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/the-challenges-of-assessing-collective-progress-design-options-for-an

Chicago

NewClimate Institute. The Challenges of Assessing Collective Progress: Design Options for an Effective Global Stocktake. 2021. http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/the-challenges-of-assessing-collective-progress-design-options-for-an.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=NewClimate Institute |title=The Challenges of Assessing Collective Progress: Design Options for an Effective Global Stocktake |date=7 May 2021 |url=http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/the-challenges-of-assessing-collective-progress-design-options-for-an |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{newclimateinstitute2021challenges, author = {{NewClimate Institute}}, title = {{The Challenges of Assessing Collective Progress: Design Options for an Effective Global Stocktake}}, institution = {NewClimate Institute}, year = {2021}, month = may, url = {http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/the-challenges-of-assessing-collective-progress-design-options-for-an}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }