Graphic detail | Green goals

How climate targets compare against a common baseline

Certain sorts of pledge are far less bold than they first appear

NEW CLIMATE announcements are coming thick and fast. In recent weeks dozens of countries, including Nigeria and Malaysia, updated the mitigation plans known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) required under the Paris climate agreement of 2015. The deal obliges its signatories to increase the ambition of their NDCs every five years. The original deadline for the first round of updates was COP26, the UN climate summit in Glasgow in 2020. However, because of the covid-19 pandemic, the shindig’s start was delayed until October this year. So far, 58% of the 191 signatories have submitted new NDCs.

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Countries’ climate targets come in many shapes and sizes. Around two-thirds of the global economy is now covered by a pledge to achieve “net-zero” emissions by around mid-century. The array of different benchmarks and definitions can obscure how ambitious each country actually plans to be. To obtain a clearer picture, The Economist has crunched data from Climate Action Tracker, a research group.

The world’s 20 biggest polluters account for four-fifths of global emissions. About half of them have climate targets that provide for their emissions to grow over the next decade—all of those are emerging economies. Their justification is that the West was allowed to spew greenhouse gases as it grew rich and that they have the right to do so, too.

Offering relative pledges connected to the intensity of future pollution, or measured against scenarios without any reductions, are popular ways to cloak meagre green ambitions and continue polluting. Tweaking statistics is another.

Consider China, the world’s biggest emitter with roughly a quarter of total emissions. It says it will cut the carbon-dioxide intensity of its GDP by over 65% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels. As economies grow, however, they automatically tend to become more energy efficient and so burn less fossil fuel to produce each unit of GDP. Carbon intensity drops, even as the country pollutes more overall. China’s target allows it to emit slightly more by the end of the decade than it does today.

Another type of climate goal involves promising to cut emissions compared with a business-as-usual scenario. Pakistan pledges a cut of 20% by 2030, compared with a pathway where no climate action is taken whatsoever. Yet this goal means its emissions could surge threefold by 2030.

Fiddling with baselines is another wheeze. Brazil submitted its updated NDC in December. A major percentage in the pledge was the same: a reduction of 43% below 2005 levels by 2030. But tweaks to its carbon accounting meant the level of emissions booked in 2005 increased from the equivalent of 2.1bn tonnes of carbon dioxide to 2.8bn tonnes. As a result, the amount Brazil can emit in 2030 has risen by about a third.

Rebasing climate targets changes the relative ambition of rich countries, too. On the face of it, the European Union’s target of lowering emissions by 55% by 2030 is more ambitious than America’s 52% cut. But the EU’s goal is based on 1990 levels and its emissions have already fallen from that point. By contrast, America’s plan is based on 2005 levels, and its emissions have fallen by less since. Once put on the same basis, America’s goal appears more laudable.

Rich countries should not feel smug about their efforts, however. If Brazil’s emissions rise in line with its pledge and America’s fall to meet its goal, by 2030 the average carbon footprint of an American will still be twice as large as that of a Brazilian. Not enough is being done to combat climate change in either the rich world or in emerging markets.

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Sources: Climate Action Tracker; World Resources Institute

This article appeared in the Graphic detail section of the print edition under the headline "Green goals"

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