Teaching Climate/Energy Law & Policy

On January 31, Annex 1 (industrialized) countries wishing to associate themselves with the Copenhagen Accord were required to register their emission reduction pledges to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

WRI has analyzed the Annex I pledges received so far, as well as pledges by countries that have yet to associate themselves with the Accord. This analysis provides a preliminary picture of where the world stands post-Copenhagen.

Our updated interactive chart presents countries’ pledges side-by–side, including the most recent pledges filed in the Copenhagen Accord. It allows users to break down the pledges based on factors such as different base years, different ranges of commitments, and -– a new feature -– on the basis of emissions intensity.

These tools enable negotiators to compare the different emission reduction pledges and aggregate them in order to calculate their global impact – and see if that impact will be sufficient.

Following a month of uncertainty, the commitments now registered with the UNFCCC show that the world is coming together to transition to a clean energy future, However, based on our analysis, we conclude that these pledges will not be enough to meet even the lower range of emission reductions required to stabilize concentrations of CO2e at 450 ppm and certainly fall short of goals to reduce concentrations below that level.

Filed under: Climate Change Law