Climate 411

10 Trends and Opportunities in the 2024 NDC Synthesis Report 

By Juan Pablo Hoffmaister / Published: October 29, 2024

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) published the NDC Synthesis Report this week. The report assesses the combined impact of nations’ current national climate plans (NDCs) on expected global emissions in 2030, among other measures.

The report concluded that the full implementation of all latest NDCs is estimated to lead to a 5.9 (3.2–8.6) percent emission reduction by 2030 relative to the 2019 level. This falls short of what the planet requires.  

While the emissions gap remains concerning, the latest NDC Synthesis Report reveals important trends and opportunities as countries prepare their next round of climate commitments. These trends point to a growing maturity in climate action planning and implementation, offering pathways to accelerate ambition and action. The synthesis reveals significant momentum in methane abatement, nature-based solutions, agricultural transformation, and ocean protection, though important gaps remain.  

  1. Integrated, Whole-of-Society Climate Action: Countries are increasingly adopting integrated approaches to climate action, with stronger recognition of nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based adaptation. The synthesis shows growing alignment between climate action, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development objectives. This integration extends to disaster risk reduction and resilience building, suggesting a more comprehensive approach to addressing climate challenges. 
  2. Strengthened Planning and Implementation: The report highlights significant progress in institutional frameworks, with 97% of Parties providing detailed NDC planning processes. Notably, 48% have integrated climate targets into national legislation, while 56% have established specific policy instruments for implementation. The growing institutionalization of climate action – with 88% indicating robust domestic arrangements for coordination and implementation – suggests countries are building stronger foundations for enhanced climate action. 
  3. Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities at the Forefront: A marked shift toward inclusive climate action is evident, with 60% of Parties now acknowledging Indigenous Peoples in their NDCs. Beyond recognition, countries are developing specific support mechanisms, including improved access to finance, capacity building for Indigenous-led climate action, and enhanced market access for Indigenous products. This trend acknowledges both vulnerabilities and the crucial role of traditional knowledge in climate solutions, though opportunities remain for stronger inclusion in decision-making and implementation. 
  4. Market Mechanisms and Article 6 Readiness: Countries demonstrate growing interest in carbon markets and cooperative approaches, with 78% planning to use some form of voluntary cooperation – up from previous years. While 12% make Article 6 use conditional for achieving targets, there’s increasing emphasis on quality criteria, including additionality, permanence, and avoiding double counting. This signals the need for robust frameworks supporting market mechanisms, including clear accounting rules and monitoring systems. 
  5. Methane Action Opportunity for Quick Wins: With 91% of Parties covering methane emissions but only 5% setting specific targets, there’s significant potential for enhanced methane action. Countries identify opportunities across waste management, agriculture, and oil and gas operations. However, implementation gaps in monitoring and measurement need addressing, alongside increased financial and technical support for methane reduction initiatives. 
  6. Feedback loops and impact learning as Strategic Opportunities for Enhancement. While 53% are developing measurement and verification systems, only 3% plan to use feedback for future NDC preparation. This highlights a critical opportunity to strengthen learning and adaptive management in climate action. Enhanced monitoring frameworks could improve effectiveness and support evidence-based policy adjustments. 
  7. Nature-Based Solutions key to climate action: Nearly half of Parties (47%) now include forest protection measures, signaling growing recognition of nature’s role in climate action. The potential is significant – reducing deforestation alone offers 2.28 GtCO2e/year in mitigation potential. While integration of nature-based solutions is increasing, frameworks for wildfire prevention and ecosystem monitoring remain underdeveloped. Enhanced financing mechanisms and stronger coordination between national and local conservation efforts could unlock greater potential in this sector. 
  8. Agricultural Transformation in the horizon. Food security emerges as a critical priority, with 90% of Parties identifying it in adaptation planning, which is consistent with the COP28 Food Declaration. Countries are increasingly adopting sustainable agricultural practices, including crop diversification and improved soil management, often integrating traditional knowledge. However, specific emission targets and monitoring systems for agriculture remain limited. Opportunities exist to strengthen food waste reduction, improve irrigation systems, and develop more resilient food systems through better supply chain integration. 
  9. Ocean Action growing attention: Ocean-related commitments show encouraging growth, with 31% of Parties identifying marine ecosystems as adaptation priorities. Blue carbon initiatives are gaining traction, with 21% of Parties including ocean carbon priorities. While 13% have quantified fisheries targets, gaps persist in marine ecosystem monitoring and financing. Promising opportunities exist in mangrove restoration, marine protected areas expansion, and coastal protection enhancement. 
  10. Adaptation is now integrated into NDCs.  Adaptation has become central to climate action, with 81% of Parties including adaptation components. This reflects a maturing understanding of climate resilience, particularly in key sectors like food security, water resources, and ecosystem management. While 29% of Parties now link adaptation with mitigation co-benefits, implementation gaps remain in financing, monitoring, and cross-sectoral integration. Strengthening these linkages, alongside better alignment with development goals, presents a key opportunity for enhanced climate action. 

The synthesis reveals a maturing climate action landscape with growing emphasis on implementation, inclusion, and integration. While gaps remain, these trends provide a foundation for enhanced ambition and accelerated action in the next round of NDCs. 

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Closing emissions gap with 2025 NDC Revisions: Critical Opportunities for Climate Action

By Juan Pablo Hoffmaister / Published: October 28, 2024

The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2024 presents stark findings on the state of global climate action. Current pledges would only reduce emissions 4-10% below 2019 levels by 2030 – far short of the 42% reduction needed to limit warming to 1.5°C. These gaps are corroborated by the Nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement Synthesis report by the UNFCCC secretariat, which noted that “bolder new climate plans are vital to drive stronger investment, economic growth and opportunity, more jobs, less pollution, better health and lower costs, more secure and affordable clean energy, among many others benefits.”

While these gaps are alarming, we have the solutions to address them. In fact, the report reveals a crucial window of opportunity as countries prepare their next Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for submission in 2025. Through immediate, decisive action on NDCs, we can bridge the gap and put ourselves back on track to 1.5. 

Reflecting on the report recommendations, these are three strategic areas to help bridge the gap in countries’ updated NDCs:  

  • First, comprehensive investment planning must become central to NDC development. Countries should include detailed project pipelines that identify specific, bankable projects aligned with sectoral transformation pathways. These plans should outline clear implementation timelines, risk mitigation strategies, and resource requirements. Critically, they must demonstrate how public finance can leverage private investment at the necessary scale.  
  • Second, NDCs must strengthen coverage and transparency across all sectors and gases. Particular attention should focus on methane emissions, where rapid reductions could have immediate climate benefits. Many countries have encouragingly incorporated methane into their NDCs – the 2024 NDC synthesis reports suggests that 91% of parties cover methane within their mitigation targets. However, only 5% of parties have specific quantified methane targets, demonstrating a significant area for improvement. 
  • Third, countries must reimagine climate finance through a just transition lens. This means moving beyond simple volume targets to emphasize finance quality: its accessibility, predictability, and alignment with development priorities. For developing economies, which require an eight to sixteenfold increase in climate investment by 2030, NDCs should clearly distinguish between unconditional actions and those requiring international support. They should also outline specific measures to ensure transitions benefit vulnerable communities and workers. 

Elements for NDC enhancement in 2025

The upcoming NDC revision cycle is a rare opportunity to fundamentally reshape climate ambition and action. By focusing on these three areas – comprehensive investment planning, enhanced sectoral coverage and transparency, and quality climate finance for just transitions – countries can develop NDCs that not only raise ambition but also chart practical pathways for implementation. 

The solutions and financing approaches exist to close the emissions gap. What’s needed now is the political will to deploy them at unprecedented speed and scale through this critical NDC revision process. 

 

Posted in Climate Finance, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Paris Agreement, United Nations / Tagged , , , , | Authors: / Comments are closed

New modeling shows the power and potential of cap-and-invest in Washington state

By Caroline Jones and Alison Wenzel / Published: October 15, 2024

Photo via Vlada Karpovich (Pexels)

Washington state’s cap-and-invest program, created in the 2021 Climate Commitment Act (CCA), is nearing the end of its second year and has already raised over $2 billion for communities by putting a price on pollution.

The program is a win-win for climate action and for communities: It creates a powerful economic incentive for companies across the state to lower their emissions, while generating investments for Washington communities in the process. There are already many projects underway across all 39 counties in the state, putting that auction revenue to use. Some of the benefits that people in Washington are seeing include:

  • More access to cleaner public transit including free ferry, bus, and other transit rides for youth.
  • Cleaner air for children in and around schools with upgrades to zero-emissions school buses and new, efficient HVAC systems.
  • Lower energy bills for low-income households and small businesses who receive support for replacing old gas furnaces with modern and efficient electric alternatives.

But the scale of this program enables it to deliver much more for Washington’s communities and economy in the long run. Just how much more? Thanks to new, in-depth modeling from Greenline Insights, supported by EDF, we now have a clearer picture of the transformative impact this program could have.

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Posted in Carbon Markets, Cities and states, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, News, Policy / Authors: , / Comments are closed

To meet our climate goals, we need climate plans backed by science and economics

By Juan Pablo Hoffmaister / Published: September 30, 2024

As countries make their way to Baku, Azerbaijan to attend COP29, the annual United National climate conference, we have a clear challenge. Currently, the climate commitments made by countries are not ambitious enough to achieve the goals set out in the Paris Agreement to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

COP29 is our moment to meet this challenge head-on, where countries can align on what needs to happen to meet our global climate goals.

Next year, countries will update their national climate plans under the Paris Agreement for 2025-2030—and the urgency to accelerate climate action has never been clearer.  These climate plans are called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and they need to be ambitious enough to meet the pace and scale demanded by science. 

Building on global lessons and efforts towards global solutions 

Responding to this global call, the NDC Partnership and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) launched a joint Climate Investment Planning and Mobilization Framework. The Framework aims to create a common language for diverse stakeholders to communicate priorities, needs, and challenges in mobilizing climate finance. 

This framework underscores the fundamental importance of strong evidence-based decision-making in revising and enhancing NDCs. Commitments need to be ambitious—but  also realistic, achievable, and aligned with the latest scientific understanding of climate change and its impacts.  

At Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), we believe in working and building on the efforts of partners. For decades we have worked to bridge science, economics and policy to drive forward practical solutions to some of our thorniest challenges, from cutting methane pollution to halting deforestation, which puts us on. We’re working to build on this record of advancing science and economics-backed NDCs by contributing new research, innovative tools, and solutions that are grounded in evidence, which uniquely positions us to Use evidence-based decisions for NDC 3.0 Revisions.  

How to Use Evidence-based Decision-Making for Impactful NDC Revisions  Read More »

Posted in Climate Finance / Authors: / Comments are closed

Why EDF is exploring marine carbon dioxide removal

By Kristin Kleisner and Mattias Cape / Published: September 25, 2024


The oceans are a massive carbon sink. Researchers, companies and governments are exploring whether we can engineer coastal and ocean systems to store even more carbon. But while the ocean presents us with great possibilities, it’s also a complex system where human interventions can impact everything from the ecological (species’ interactions or the habitats they depend on) to the socio-economic (food systems or economic livelihoods).  

EDF has a track record of coordinating collaborative research on natural carbon storage systems in the ocean to understand both their role in carbon sequestration and their potential to generate ecological and socio-economic benefits, as well as any associated risks.  

We’re now taking a similarly holistic approach to exploring the potential of technical approaches to marine carbon dioxide removal (or, mCDR). Our aim: to identify the areas with the greatest potential to accelerate innovation with minimal risks to people and nature.  

mCDR: different methods to increase carbon sinks 

Marine CDR is a manmade intervention in the marine environment that changes the biology, chemistry or physics of the surface ocean resulting in the net removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A few ideas have been suggested based on existing knowledge of ocean science. For example:  

  • Using fertilizers like iron sprinkled in the water in large quantities could encourage the growth of phytoplankton, microscopic marine plants, that, by sinking or being consumed, could facilitate the movement of carbon to the deep sea.  
  • Releasing minerals into surface waters that amplifies the slow natural weathering of rocks like limestone or basalt could help boost ocean’s alkalinity and increase carbon sequestration rates in the ocean.  
  • Pumping surface water to deeper depths could take carbon dioxide the ocean has absorbed from the atmosphere and mimic the natural process of phytoplankton sinking when they die.  

While these innovations seem promising, changing natural processes can result in a host of hard-to-determine impacts. For example, scientists don’t yet know whether artificial fertilization and growth could result in carbon export to the deep ocean. Therefore, we need to be cautious and examine not only the efficacy of carbon removal, but also impacts on marine life and human health. There are also complex ethical considerations associated with undertaking many of these approaches, from economic costs to impacts on livelihoods and food security across both short and long timescales. It’s critical to understand the risks as well as who will benefit, and who will bear the costs as decisions to continue research or deployment are being made.   

Why it’s time to examine mCDR’s efficacy and impacts 

It’s clear that holding warming below 2 degrees Celsius through emissions reductions and the energy transition alone will be difficult. We see a potential role for mCDR in contributing to stabilizing the climate and reaching net zero goals in the long term, which requires gaining a better understanding of benefits and risks in the short term. More and more organizations are working on mCDR, in large part driven by significant interest in the voluntary carbon market. And while funding is currently focused on evaluating the efficacy of carbon removal, we lack a solid scientific basis upon which to make reasonable decisions.  

A strong scientific foundation is critical to speeding and scaling CDR solutions. But speeding and scaling down the wrong path can ultimately reduce confidence in entire solution pathways, as well as lead to environmental harms. EDF wants to help to establish, guardrails, governance and policies to help develop a responsible research program that would allow thoughtful consideration of the full scope of both climate and ecological and socio-economic implications of mCDR development.   

EDF applies a systems perspective in examining climate solutions, with mCDR fitting within our existing and complementary efforts related to natural climate solutions, emissions reductions, carbon markets and solar geoengineering methods. We also have a long track record of working with academe, industry, governments, other NGOs, community groups and other civil society organizations to provide society with the understandings required to make science-based decisions.   

While EDF is not supporting widespread deployment of mCDR methods at this time, we are engaging in the following ways: 

  • Assessing research needs, contributing to research, advocating for research code of conduct, and supporting the development of rigorous standards for assessing the safety of any research in this space.  
  • Examining permitting and regulatory needs to help inform recommendations and policies.  
  • Developing effective engagement strategies with communities and interested parties around mCDR research. 
  • Creating a holistic framework to evaluate different benefits, risks and tradeoffs of different types of mCDR.  
  • Advocating for the developing of a robust federal research initiative on marine CDR 

Emissions reduction remains EDF’s number one priority and primary focus. However, as we work to address near term warming and with it limit some of the most worrisome impacts of climate change that we’re already experiencing, we need to research new technologies that show promise. Instead of jumping into mCDR with a Gold Rush mentality, it’s critical to develop an evaluative framework for looking at the impacts of these new technologies across the multiple dimensions that affect the environment and people’s wellbeing and engage civil society in the process. 

Posted in Geoengineering, News, Oceans, Science / Authors: , / Comments are closed

Breaking Barriers: Empowering Indigenous Voices in Global Climate and Biodiversity Decisions

By Guest Author / Published: September 20, 2024

Sonia Guajarara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, leads a march at COP28 in Dubai, UAE.
Photo: Estevam Rafael / Audiovisual / PR / Palácio do Planalto via Flickr

Léalo en español

This post is written by Santiago García Lloré, Senior Manager of IPLC and Conservation Partnerships at EDF.

In the coming days, major international events like New York Climate Week, the COP for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Cali, and the UN Climate Change Conference (COP) in Baku will gather world leaders to discuss solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises. Once again, there will be calls to include Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) in these discussions. This recognition is not just about their crucial role as stewards of forests and biodiversity; it’s about understanding that real, sustainable solutions won’t be possible without their voices at the table.

Despite all their efforts, it remains extremely difficult for IPLCs to participate meaningfully in these events. Even though Indigenous and local community leaders strive to be present and contribute to global discussions, their journey to these forums is fraught with challenges. At COP27 in Egypt, around 300 Indigenous representatives attended, and approximately a similar number attended at COP28 in Dubai. However, the impact of their presence is often limited because of the many barriers they must overcome. These obstacles make it incredibly hard for Indigenous voices to be fully heard and valued despite their significant efforts to be part of these critical conversations.

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Posted in Forest protection, Indigenous People, Paris Agreement, REDD+, United Nations / Authors: / Comments are closed