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The document examines the environmental integrity risks—specifically baseline determination, additionality, permanence, and leakage—and social safeguards associated with using forest-related mitigation credits in international carbon markets like Article 6 and CORSIA. It notes that while transfer-based finance could increase funding for forest protection, it introduces risks such as credit oversupply and volatility in market prices.

The refrigeration and air conditioning (RAC) sector's transition to low-carbon operations is complicated by its cross-sectoral nature, which spans gas manufacturing, appliance production, and building energy use. This complexity results in fragmented institutional responsibilities and varying policy and compliance regimes. The document aims to map the current financial landscape of the sector, identifying sources of funding and the roles of different stakeholders in achieving ambitious emission reductions.

The report evaluates the role of cities, regions, companies, and investors in climate mitigation. While the potential for these actors to reduce emissions is vast—potentially up to 15-23 GtCO2 e per year by 2030—their current contribution remains limited. The document highlights a lack of consistent reporting and data, and calls for improved transparency, quantifiable targets, and stronger government support to scale up these efforts.

The report evaluates the impact of climate commitments from over 6,000 cities, states, and regions and more than 2,000 companies. While these non-state actors can significantly lower emissions, their actions alone are insufficient to limit global temperature increases to 1.5°C or well-below 2°C. Full implementation of individual commitments could reduce global emissions by 1.5 to 2.2 GtCO2e/year by 2030 compared to current national policies, while international cooperative initiatives could further reduce 2030 emissions by approximately one-third (15-23 GtCO2e/year).

The document outlines a proposal by the Project for Advancing Climate Transparency (PACT) to assist climate negotiators in creating cohesive implementing guidelines for the Paris Agreement. It focuses on the cycle of planning, implementing, and reviewing climate actions, identifying core requirements for elements such as common timeframes and cooperative processes to ensure accountability and sustainable development.

The analysis finds that while national climate legislation and strategies grew rapidly before 2009 and now cover 69% of global GHG emissions, their growth has recently stagnated. In contrast, economy-wide GHG targets increased significantly leading up to the 2015 Paris Agreement, covering 93% of global emissions by 2017. Renewable energy targets also showed steady growth, increasing from 45% of global GHG emissions coverage in 2007 to 79% in 2017, with notable increases in developing countries.

The study argues that current national climate plans are insufficient and would necessitate disruptive changes after 2030. By implementing a global roll-out of regional regulatory policies across energy, transport, buildings, industry, and land use, global CO2 emissions could be reduced by an additional 10 GtCO2eq by 2030. While these policies are less disruptive than immediate global carbon pricing, they result in higher economic impacts, suggesting they should complement rather than replace carbon pricing to achieve the Paris goals.

The study identifies that high financing costs in Tunisia, driven by power market, counterparty, and political risks, inflate the cost of renewable energy. By implementing targeted public derisking measures, Tunisia could significantly lower generation costs for wind and solar PV, catalyzing over EUR 1.6 billion in private investment and reducing carbon emissions by 32.2 million tonnes of CO2 over 20 years. The analysis concludes that the economic savings from lower capital costs outweigh the public expenditure required for these instruments.

The study finds that replicating successful sectoral policies globally could reduce projected 2030 annual GHG emissions to approximately 50 GtCO2e, compared to 60 GtCO2e under current policies. The most significant reductions would occur in the electricity sector through renewable energy expansion, followed by reductions in fluorinated gases, oil and gas venting and flaring, and industrial efficiency. While this approach would significantly narrow the emissions gap with a 2°C pathway, it would not close it entirely.

The document argues that Article 6 of the Paris Agreement can raise ambition if it focuses on inaccessible abatement options and includes time-limited support. It identifies three primary opportunities for ambition raising—global mitigation benefits via Article 6.4, non-market cooperation, and targeting inaccessible abatement—but warns that these depend on four broad safeguards to prevent ambition disincentives.

The document examines the interconnectedness of the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It introduces the SDG Climate Action Nexus (SCAN) tool, which identifies over 500 potential linkages between specific mitigation actions and SDG targets, noting that over 80% of these are positive. The report further analyzes challenges in data transparency, financing, and institutional frameworks, while providing case studies on policy coordination in India and The Netherlands.

The study concludes that the EU could achieve greenhouse gas reductions of -55% to -62% below 1990 levels by 2030 by scaling best practice policies from member states like Denmark and Germany. Key levers include a faster coal exit, increased electrical energy efficiency, deeper building renovations, and higher emissions standards for transport. Implementing these measures could reduce energy demand by nearly 45% below 2007 levels and increase renewable energy's share of total final energy demand to 45%, suggesting that political will, rather than technical capacity, is the primary barrier to more ambitious targets.

The document examines the design of the global stocktake under Article 14 of the Paris Agreement, emphasizing the need for robust, inclusive modalities that allow the process to evolve based on technological and societal changes to inform the enhancement of national climate actions.

The report identifies newly adopted policies in 25 major emitting countries and regions—representing 79% of 2012 global GHG emissions—that support long-term decarbonisation goals. These policies include carbon taxes, coal phase-outs, and support for renewable energy and electric vehicles, focusing on legislative decisions and executive orders with direct effects on reducing emissions.

The Climate Action Tracker reports that current national commitments and policies are insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement's warming limits, projecting temperature increases of 3.2°C to 3.4°C by 2100. To align with a 1.5°C limit, global emissions must peak by 2020, requiring rapid decarbonization across the electricity, transport, building, industry, and agriculture sectors.

The paper argues that while top-down regulatory measures have not yet limited global warming to 2°C, bottom-up non-state action in the refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) sector can fill the emissions gap. It identifies supermarkets, cold stores, and hotels as key end-users whose choices regarding energy efficiency and low-GWP refrigerants can significantly reduce carbon footprints. However, the document notes that few non-state initiatives currently target the RAC sector due to regulatory, market, and informational barriers. It suggests that alliances can help overcome these hurdles, though it emphasizes that voluntary action must be accompanied by mandatory government regulation to be effective.

The paper analyzes the supply curve of CERs from CDM projects, finding a significant volume of units available below €1 per unit, many of which do not require CER revenues to continue abatement. It concludes that without eligibility restrictions, CORSIA's demand for offsets up to 2035 would likely fail to raise CER prices or increase overall greenhouse gas abatement.

The analysis indicates that farming practice changes alone are insufficient to limit global warming to 1.5°C. Achieving deep emission cuts aligned with the Paris Agreement's net-zero goal requires a holistic approach that integrates supply-side efficiency and innovation with demand-side changes, specifically altering diets and reducing food waste to address non-CO2 emissions while ensuring global food security.

The report establishes ten sectoral benchmarks for 2020–2025 to align with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement, emphasizing the need for large-scale technology diffusion and sector transformations over marginal efficiency gains. Key targets include a total ban on new coal power plants, a 30% reduction in emissions from the existing coal fleet by 2025, and ensuring all new buildings are fossil-free and near-zero energy by 2020.

The report identifies a discrepancy between the optimism of national-level experts and the reservations of sector-level experts regarding NDC implementation. While national experts express confidence in policy alignment, sector experts highlight significant challenges in funding, skills, and the alignment of development plans. The findings reveal that only 38% of respondents' governments have quantified resource needs and 90% believe governments must improve their ability to attract private capital. To address these gaps, the report proposes a new diagnostic framework to assess a sector's 'fitness' for decarbonisation and advocates for an 'enhanced benefits approach' that links climate mitigation to broader development goals like energy security and economic growth.