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What do you mean: ‘Common Time Frame’?

by Benito Müller

This blog post looks at the issue of whether it is in the mandate of the Art. 4.10 negotiations to seek a single common time frame for NDCs. Based on a comparative analysis of the six official UN language texts, the post concludes not only that this is indeed the case, but also that the outcome of these negotiations ought to include the adoption of common end-years for NDCs.

The concept of ‘Common Time Frame’ appears only once in the the Paris Agreement (PA), namely in the Article 4.10 stipulation that “common time frames for nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) shall be considered at the first session of the governing body of the PA. In December 2018, at this first session in Katowice, common time frames were accordingly considered and it  was decided that “Parties shall apply common time frames” to their NDCs to be implemented from 2031 onward (Decision 6/CMA.1), but without any further clarification as to what they might be, indeed without any clarification as to what the key ‘time frame’ concept refers to in this context.

Notwithstanding this ambiguity, or maybe because of it, there has been a heated debate about the mandate of the negotiations under this Article with regard to whether it would be permissible to negotiate a single common time frame, given the article in the English language text refers to ‘time frames’ in the plural.

The aim of this blog post is to try and understand better what Parties actually had in mind in Paris in this context.  For this, it is useful to have a closer look at the official six UN language texts of the Paris Agreement (and its implementing Decision 1/CP21), not only because it stands to reason that Parties would have insisted on changes if they disagreed with the language in their official language texts, but also because these six texts are all to be considered “equally authentic”[Art. 29,PA].

The French Art. 4.10 text, for one, refers to “calendriers communs” (common calendars/schedules/timetables), while the Spanish and Russian texts invoke common deadlines (“los plazos comunes” and “obshchikh srokakh” общих сроках, respectively), which obvioulsy can jointly make up one or several calendries communs.

The Arabic and Chinese texts use direct translations of the two nouns that make up the English compound ‘time frame’, with the Arabic using the plural form “alatir alzamania” الاطر الزمنية (time frames).

The Chinese text allows for both a singular and a plural reading of  “kuàngjià” 框架  (frame), although the juxtaposition with “gòngtóng” 共同 (common) makes the singular reading the more natural one. In any case, the important thing here is that the Chinese text clearly allows both for common time frames and for a common time frame to be considered under the Article.   

One therefore clearly needs to be cautious with basing substantive claims on grammatical form alone:  There was evidently no agreement among Parties in Paris that a single common time frame for NDCs should not be an option. Accordingly it has to be accepted that it is as much part of the mandate of the Art. 4.10 negotiations to develop a single common time frame as it is to adopt a plurality thereof.

The different language texts of the PA also re-confirm two different basic interpretations of the key Art. 4.10 concept, namely a ‘material’ and a ‘procedural’ one: “The material interpretation is about time intervals associated with the NDCs – to be precise, about target periods and implementation periods. The procedural interpretation is about timetables for the processes of communicating and updating NDCs.”[Benito Müller, ‘Common Time Frames’: What & Why? A Contribution to the Debate on Article 4.10 of the Paris Agreement, 2018]

The English compound noun ‘time-frame’ admits both readings (Box 1), while the French, Spanish and Russian texts are anchored in the procedural interpretation.

Box 1. OED Definition

The only substantive use of the concept in the Paris outcome is in paragraphs 23 and 24 of Decision 1/CP21, where it is used to identify Parties with particular types of intended nationally determined contributions (INDC), namely those whose INDC pursuant to decision 1/CP.20 contains a time frame up to 2025 (or 2030 respectively).

As such, the content of Decision 1/CP21 would have been exactly the same if paragraphs 23 and 24 had instead referred to Parties whose INDC pursuant to decision 1/CP.20 ends in 2025 (resp. 2030).

What about the (only) other two occurrences of the concept in the Paris outcome, i.e. in paragraph 27 and Article 4.10? Could they have been equally re-expressed by reference to end-years without a change of content?

Consider the Spanish text, where the key concept can be read as being expressed in terms of ‘deadlines’:

  • Para 23 [24]: requests those Parties whose INDC pursuant to decision 1/CP.20 include a deadline up to (“comprenda un plazo hasta”) 2025 [2030].
  • Para 27: Agrees that the information to be provided by Parties … may include … the deadlines  (“los plazos”) and/or periods for implementation …
  • Art. 4.10: shall consider common deadlines for NDCs (“los plazos comunes para las contribuciones determinadas a nivel nacional”).

A simple substitution with a reference to ‘NDC end-years’ would obviously not conserve the meaning of this language, as there are other deadlines associated with NDCs than just their end-years. However, in light of paragraphs 23 and 24, the end-year of NDCs clearly must be one of the deadlines to be considered under Art. 4.10. Given Decision 6/CMA.1, this in turn implies that:

  • Parties shall (inter alia) apply common end-years to their NDCs to be implemented from 2031 onward.

It may well be that not all of the six language texts of the Paris outcome lend themselves to arrive at the same conclusion, but as long as none of the others explicitly contradict it, it can be argued that common NDC end years need to be considered as a legitimate outcome of the Art. 4.10 negotiations.

Acknowledgments: The author would like to express his gratitude for linguistic advice to Mohamed Nasr (Arabic), Marc Sadler and Pascale Müller (Russian), Xing Li and Natalie Chung (Chinese), while claiming responsibility for all remaining mistakes for himself.

Appendix: Decision 1/CP.21. Time Frames

23. Requests those Parties whose intended nationally determined contribution pursuant to decision 1/CP.20 contains a time frame up to 2025 to communicate by 2020 a new nationally determined contribution and to do so every five years thereafter pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 9, of the Agreement;

24. Also requests those Parties whose intended nationally determined contribution pursuant to decision 1/CP.20 contains a time frame up to 2030 to communicate or update by 2020 these contributions and to do so every five years thereafter pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 9, of the Agreement;

27. Agrees that the information to be provided by Parties communicating their nationally determined contributions, in order to facilitate clarity, transparency and understanding, may include, as appropriate, inter alia, quantifiable information on the reference point (including, as appropriate, a base year), time frames and/or periods for implementation, scope and coverage, planning processes, assumptions and methodological approaches including those for estimating and accounting for anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and, as appropriate, removals, and how the Party considers that its nationally determined contribution is fair and ambitious, in the light of its national circumstances, and how it contributes towards achieving the objective of the Convention as set out in its Article 2;

A first case for the Compliance Committee of the Paris Agreement – the EU?

Christoph Schwarte, Executive Director, Legal Response International

In his review of the EU climate policy, in the most recent edition of Climate Law, Christoph Schwarte, the executive director of OCP partner organisation LRI, draws attention to the EU’s missing notification under Article 4 of the Paris Agreement.

The European Union (EU) has long sought to play a leadership role in the international climate change negotiations. On 17 December 2020 it updated its joint nationally determined contribution (NDC) on mitigation under the Paris Agreement from at least 40 per cent to at least 55 per cent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels.[1]

To date, the EU and its member states are the only parties to the Paris Agreement that have a joint NDC. Article 4 paragraph 16 of the Paris Agreement specifically provides that parties that have reached agreement on a joint NDC “shall notify the secretariat of the terms of that agreement, including the emission level allocated to each Party with the relevant time period, when they communicate their nationally determined contributions”. As a result, the member states of the EU (or any other economic integration organisation) would be jointly with the EU and severally liable for their individual emission levels (Article 16 para.18).

The EU Decision, approving the Paris Agreement explicitly recognized the need to notify the secretariat of the emission levels allocated to the EU and its member states.[2] The agreements, setting out the individual commitments of member states for the first (2008-2012) and second (2013-2020) commitment periods of the Kyoto Protocol were notified to the secretariat in line with Article 4.2 of the Protocol.[3]

There is a comprehensive legal framework in place to agree, monitor and pursue the individual mitigation targets of EU member states.[4] To reflect the new 55 per cent target the European Commission has already tabled proposals for amending the relevant legislation (e.g. on the EU Emission Trading Scheme and the Effort-Sharing Regulation). So far, however, the EU and its member states have not been able notified the UNFCCC secretariat of the terms of an agreement on their joint NDC, including member states’ emission levels.

So while this notification is missing, are the EU and its member states non-compliant with Article 4.16 of under the Paris Agreement? Yes! Article 4.16 is among the few prescriptive provisions in the Paris Agreement that contains a clear procedural obligation of conduct. But is this also a case for the committee established under Article 15 of the Paris Agreement to facilitate implementation and promote compliance? No, unless the EU “self-refer” the issue to the Committee.[5]

The Committee can consider a party’s compliance on its own initiative in a limited number of cases only: if the party has failed to either communicate or maintain an NDC under Article 4; to submit a mandatory report or communication under the transparency framework of Article 13; to participate in the Facilitative, Multilateral Consideration of Progress; or to communicate mandatory information on finance under Article 9.5.[6] The requirement to notify the secretariat of the terms of a joint NDC is not mentioned at all in the Modalities and procedures for the effective operation of the committee to facilitate implementation and promote compliance adopted in Katowice.

So does any of this actually matter to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement? Probably, at least a bit: Article 4.16 ensures a degree of transparency and accountability. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol (Annex B), the Paris Agreement does not list parties’ mitigation targets. Where an agreement to act jointly fails or is prematurely terminated, the prior notification of individual emission levels would provide a degree of clarity (maybe also for future carbon markets) on parties’ responsibilities.

The Paris Agreement is largely built around procedural reporting obligations. To succeed parties will need to take all of the Agreement’s provisions seriously. Non-compliance could weaken its overall structure and the ability to function effectively. Other parties may also decide to develop and submit a joint NDC and the current situation risks setting a precedent for the Agreement’s future implementation and result in different interpretations of parties’ obligations.

So even if the European Union submits the missing notification before long, a formal decision by the COP serving as the meeting of parties to the Agreement (CMA) should therefore, address the issue of the missing notification under Article 4. To clarify the procedural expectations and their relevance in the future implementation of the treaty, such a decision could, for example, invite all parties that act jointly under Article 4.2 to notify the secretariat as soon as they have reached an agreement or, pending the conclusion of such an agreement, provide additional information on the likely outcome of their internal discussion or on the specific problems encountered concluding their deliberations.

For a comprehensive legal analysis of the current EU climate policy see Christoph Schwarte, EU Climate Policy under the Paris Agreement, Climate Law 11 (2021), pp.157-175, 

ecbi Guide to the Paris Agreement App

[1] Germany and the European Commission, on behalf of the EU and its member states, Update of the
NDC of the European Union and its Member States, Berlin, 17 December 2020 available via www4.unfccc.int/sites/ndcstaging/Pages/Home.aspx.

[2] Council of the EU, Decision on the Conclusion, on Behalf of the European Union, of the Paris Agreement Adopted under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 
(EU) 2016/1841, 5 October 2016.

[3] UNFCCC Secretariat, Note on the Agreement between the European Community and its Member States under Article 4 of the Kyoto Protocol, document FCCC/CP/2002/2, of 12 June 2002, which summarises the process and disseminates the agreement amongst parties. General Secretariat Council of the EU, attachment to Note Verbale, Brussels, 21 December 2017, available at unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/EU_2.pdf.

[4] Commission proposal for amendments supra note 8.

[5] Paris Agreement, decision 20/CMA.1, Annex, Modalities and procedures for the effective operation of the committee referred to in Article 15, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement, para.20.

[6] Paris Agreement, decision 20/CMA.1, Annex sub-paragraph 22 (a) i-iv).

Completing the Paris Ambition Mechanism in Glasgow

Key Message for Policy Makers

The Current Situation

The ‘Ambition Mechanism’ of the Paris Agreement is currently given by two interlocking five-year cycles:

  • A communication cycle: All Parties must communicate a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) every five years (Art. 4.9).
  • A ‘Global Stocktake’ review cycle: To take stock of the implementation of the Paris Agreement, and to assess the collective progress towards achieving its purpose (Art.14.1).

The Challenges

Accounting

At present, there are NDCs ending in (“with a time frame up to”) 2025 and others in 2030. Not having the same end-years makes global accounting very difficult, if not impossible. This applies not only to the Global Stocktake, with its backwards review of the state of implementation and its forward assessment of the collective ambition, but also to issues such as the avoidance of double counting in global emission trading (Art.6).

Enhancing Ambition

There are currently no instructions in the Paris Agreement and its rulebook about reconsidering the level of ambition of one’s NDCs once they have been communicated, other than an acknowledgment that Parties can enhance the level of ambition, if they wish to do so (Art.4.11)

This is sub-optimal because Parties are unlikely to ‘spontaneously’ enhance the ambition of their previously communicated NDCs on their own – or at least not as much as they would be willing and able to in coordination with their international partners and competitors, and such a coordinated ambition enhancement requires an advance notification of the initially proposed levels of ambition

The Solution

Addressing these challenges requires:

  • a single universal Common Time Frame, i.e. simultaneous end years for all NDCs;
  • a sufficient advance notification of NDCs;
  • a timetable for regular consideration of enhancing the level of ambition of previously communicated NDCs.

The Glasgow Ambition Cycle

All this can be provided by adopting the following very simple Decision – to complete the Ambition Mechanism of the Paris Agreement in Glasgow: The CMA

  • requests Parties to communicate by 2025 a nationally determined contribution with a time frame up to 2035, and to do so every five years thereafter;
  • also requests Parties to consider in 2025 updating/adjusting their existing nationally determined contributions with a view to enhancing levels of ambition, and to do so every five years thereafter.

A more comprehensive version of this decision text is provided in the GAC blog:

This post is taken from a Technical Paper produced by OCP/ecbi for the Alliance of Small Island States.

2 ‘update’ or not 2 ‘update’ every 5 years, that is the Q4

Some comments on the informal consultations on Common Time Frames (CTF) in the recent session of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI)

by Benito Müller

The Guiding Questions

The substantive work on this SBI agenda item began on 10 June promisingly with the presentation of the following four guiding questions by the co-facilitators, Kishan Kumarsingh (Trinidad and Tobago) and Andrew Rakestraw (US):

The aim of this blog is to respond on the basis of the Glasgow Ambition Cycle (GAC) proposal to some comments that were made during that consultation.

In its most detailed version (with explanatory comments in square brackets) the GAC is given as follows: The CMP

  1. requests Parties to communicate by 2025 inter alia a nationally determined contribution with a time frame up to 2035, and to do so every five years thereafter, in line with Art. 4.9 [five-yearly communications];
  2. also requestParties to consider in 2025 adjusting their existing nationally determined contributions with a view to enhancing its level of ambition in line with Art. 4.11, as well as Art. 2.2 [Equity], Art. 4.3 [Progression], and Art. 4.9 [informed by the outcomes of the relevant global stocktake] of the Paris Agreement, and to do so every five years thereafter.

The relevant Paris Agreement Articles(pertinent language highlighted in italics)

  • Art. 4.11. A Party may at any time adjust its existing nationally determined contribution with a view to enhancing its level of ambition, in accordance with guidance adopted by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Agreement
  • Art. 2.2. This Agreement will b implemented to reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.t
  • Art. 4.3. Each Party’s successive nationally determined contribution will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution and reflect its highest possible ambition, reflecting its common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.
  • Art. 4.9. Each Party shall communicate a nationally determined contribution every five years in accordance with decision 1/CP21 and any relevant decisions of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Agreement and be informed by the outcomes of the global stocktake referred to in Article 14.

I. Q1 to Q3

The discussion of the first three guiding questions revealed that the proposed language of the GAC may have to be strengthened with a stipulation that post 2030, the time frames of successive NDCs are to be five years apart, namely 2035, 2040, 2045, and so on.

It also exposed a possible mis-reading of para. 1 of the GAC as implying that Parties can only communicate a 2035 NDC in 2025. This is not the case: Parties could also communicate a second, or indeed a third NDC by 2025 and be GAC compliant, provided the first one ends in 2035, and the others in 2040 and 2045, respectively, as reflected by the ‘inter alia’ in para. 1 of the GAC language.

II. Q4

What was surprising, at least to me, in the context of the fourth guiding question was the almost allergic reaction of some participants to the very concept of ‘updating’. Two reservations in particular caught my attention.

1.1 What ‘updating’?

The question arose of what exactly ‘updating’ means. First of all, it needs to be high-lighted that, while it does not occur in the Paris Agreement itself, the term is part of the Paris terminology (cf. para. 24 Decision 1/CP.21). Second, I think there is a common understanding that, in good faith, it means to re-communicate an existing NDC with its ambition enhanced.

Accordingly, it is not a new form of communication of NDCs: Updated NDCs are communicated like all the others. Nor does a cosmetic change (e.g. through the provision of new information) satisfies the term in this good faith reading.

1.2. Introducing perverse incentives for ‘gaming’?

It has also been said that to introduce a regular invitation to ‘update’ might create ‘perverse incentives’ and lead to ‘gaming’ as regards to the ambition one is willing to communicate.

First of all, it needs to be stressed that this could only occur if we assume the above-mentioned good-faith interpretation of ‘updating’: for someone who interprets ‘updating’ as, say, the provision of additional information only, there is no incentive to game with regard to ambition.

The perverse incentive, I take it,  is meant to be that a Party which could take on a target of  x would be tempted initially to communicate a less stringent target (x+y) so when asked to update they could ‘update’ this back to x. Consider the situation illustrated in Fig. 1: Let’s say some Parties have determined that the maximum they can contribute is 100 which, when there is no request for regular updating, they proceed to communicate at T1. If they are expected to update regularly, the gaming argument goes, they would communicate instead a less ambitious target, say 125, in order to be able to ‘reduce’ something in the next communication round at T2 (in the same way in which some retailers may artificially inflate the original price, so as to be able to provide a ‘discount’ in the next sale).

Now, let us assume that by T2 it is indeed the case that the situation has not changed and they can still only contribute 100. What will therefore happen in T2? In the scenario without a request for regular updating, the NDCs remain unchanged at 100. If there is regular updating, they can now ‘update’ the NDCs originally communicated in T1 by increasing their ambition from 125 to 100. In short, ambition-wise, the end result in T2 is the same with or without the request for regular updating.

It is however not the same if one considers that the request for regular updates allows Parties to raise ambition together simultaneously, which I strongly believe results in greater overall ambition than the status quo, where Parties are left to enhance ambition ‘spontaneously’ on their own. For more on this, see:

Click image to read the post, in particular the sections on “Locking in of low ambition due to a lack of an updating time table” and “Combining the advantages of Plan A and Plan B while avoiding their shortcomings”

In short, I do not believe there really is cause rejecting a request for regular updating on these grounds. However, it would also not be wise to let oneself become a hostage to fortune for purely terminological reasons. This is why para. 2 of the GAC proposal only uses agreed Paris Agreement language.

Common Time Frames — Synthesising the Options for a Decision in Glasgow

Background

It has become increasingly clear over the past 18 months since COP 25 in Madrid that the Parties to the Paris Agreement are intent on finishing the negotiations on ‘common time frames for nationally determined contributions referred to in Article 4, paragraph 10, of the Paris Agreement’ at COP 26 in Glasgow. Indeed, the UK COP 26 Presidency has made this one of their top three priorities regarding the completion of the Paris Rule Book in Glasgow.

At present, there are ten options – listed in an Options Note published at the end of COP 25 in Madrid – under consideration. The question, as raised by a growing number of Parties in the course of recent informal consultations, now is: how can this multitude be whittled down to a smaller more manageable number (preferably just one) of revised (‘synthesis’) options without losing the support of the proponents of original ones.

To do this, this blog post looks at the ‘action content’–  i.e. the concrete instructions (if any) they contain on who is meant to do what, when and with regard to which NDC (identified by the time-frame/end-year) – of these proposals with the aim to demonstrate that what has become known as the ‘Glasgow Ambition Cycle’ (GAC)[1] can serve as an overarching synthesis option, delivering the advantages of all the Madrid options, without suffering their shortcomings.

The Glasgow Ambition Cycle:

  1. Request Parties to communicate by 2025a nationally determined contribution with a time frame up to 2035, and to do so every five years thereafter, pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 9, of the Agreement
  2. Also request Parties to consider in 2025 updating any nationally determined contributions communicated before, and to do so every five years thereafter

But before turning to accomplish this, a few words on the historical background of this issue.

At COP 21 in Paris (2015), it was agreed that the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) “shall consider common time frames for nationally determined contributions at its first session”[Art. 4.10]. In Marrakech, the year after, the CMA agreed to refer the matter to the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) which, in 2017 in Bonn (SBI 47), “invited Parties and observers to submit, by 31 March 2018, their views on common time frames for NDCs … including on, but not limited to, the usefulness of and options for common time frames and the advantages and disadvantages of those options, for consideration at SBI 48 (April–May 2018)”[SBI 47 conclusions].

By May 2018, 15 Parties had made submissions, which were analyzed in an OCP/ecbi Discussion Note (see below), but the SBI deliberations didn’t progress beyond List of Bullet points by the co-facilitators (SBI.48.2, September 2019).

The first, and hitherto only decision on the matter was taken at CMA.1 in Katowice when it was decided “that Parties shall apply common time frames to their nationally determined contributions to be implemented from 2031 onward”(Decision 6/CMA.1). 

SBI.50 (June 2019) resulted in an informal note listing 6 options, which was picked up and expanded to 10 options at SBI.51 in Madrid (December 2019), where however the deliberations were rolled over under Rule 16 and have not been taken up since due to the COVID pandemic.[2]

What did take place since then was an Informal and a Technical Dialogue in November 2020, and an Informal Consultation of heads of delegations by the COP Presidencies in April 2021, all of which pointing to a desire by Parties to settle this issue at COP 26 in Glasgow, and consequently, to reduce the number of options that are currently under consideration.

What Timeframes?

One of the key obstacles to progress in the CTF negotiations has been that Parties do not have a common understanding on what ‘timeframe’ actually refers to, let alone what it is to have a ‘common timeframe’.

In June 2018, OCP published an in-depth analysis of this situation on the basis of the Party submissions requested at SBI.47 (Müller 2018.a). It showed that Parties were essentially using two types of interpretations of ‘timeframe’: a material- and a procedural one. The material interpretation is about time intervals associated with the NDCs – to be precise, about target- and implementation periods, and mostly involves references to their lengths. The procedural interpretation is about timetables for the processes of communicating and updating NDCs.

Subsequent work based on this analysis (listed below in Selected Publications) did suggest a way to “synthesise” CTF proposals, such as the ones contained in the SBI.50 Options Note, by describing their specific action content, that is to say the concrete instructions they contain with regards to who does what, when and with respect to which NDC (as identified by its endpoint[3]).

The paradigm formulation of this type of specific action content is given in paragraphs 23 and 24 of Decision 1/CP.21, and the same language is used in formulating the Glasgow Ambition Cycle proposal to be discussed in the next section as synthesising these two paragraphs into a single common time frame proposal in a way which preserves the advantages of both while avoiding the disadvantages of either:

Decision 1/CP.21 (Adoption of the Paris Agreement):

23.  Requests those Parties whose intended nationally determined contribution pursuant to decision 1/CP.20 contains a time frame up to 2025 to communicate by 2020 a new nationally determined contribution and to do so every five years thereafter pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 9, of the Agreement

24.  Also requests those Parties whose intended nationally determined contribution pursuant to decision 1/CP.20 contains a time frame up to 2030 to communicate or update by 2020 these contributions and to do so every five years thereafter pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 9, of the Agreement

Analysis of SBI.51 Options

Turning now to analysing the proposals listed in the SBI.50 Options Note (appended below) with regard to their specific action content, the first thing that needs to be highlighted is that not all of them actually have this sort of specific action content: Neither Option 1 nor Option 4 contain references to specific NDCs or communication/updating years. As reflected in Table 1, the others do contain information as to who is meant to do what, when, and with respect to which NDC.[4]

Table 1 clearly shows that:

  • Option 9 has the same action content as Option 2, and
  • Option 8 the same as Option 10 (namely the communication procedure of the GAC).

Given that with respect to action content, Option 3 covers Option 6, and Option 5 is covered by Option 2, there are really only three distinct Options in the SBI.51 Note with respect to actions they refer to, namely Options 2, 3, and 7 (with their action content graphically represented in Tables 2, 3, and 4, respectively).

Option 2:

  1. Decides that common time frames … shall be five years between the end points of two successive NDCs.
  2. Further decides that Parties should communicate two successive nationally determined contributions, starting in 2025, with starting points of 1 January 2031 and 1 January 2036 respectively and ending in 2040.
  3. Urges Parties
    1. to communicate and update their nationally determined contributions in 2025 and every five years thereafter, consistent with progression.
    1. to communicate by 2025 a nationally determined contribution with a time frame up to 2035 or 2040 including an indicative waypoint in years ending in 0 and 5.

Option 3 (‘Continue-with-Status-Quo’ Option):

  1. Invites each Party to communicate by 2025 a nationally determined contribution with a time frame up to 2035 or 2040.
  2. Requests:
  3. those Parties whose nationally determined contributions contain a time frame up to 2035 to communicate by 2030 their respective new nationally determined contributions with a time frame up to 2040; and
  4. those Parties whose nationally determined contributions contain a time frame up to 2040 to communicate or update by 2030 these nationally determined contributions.

Table 3.a illustrates the action content of Option 3, and Table 3.b illustrates at first sight that Option 3 is simply the continuation of the status quo as prescribed in §23 and §24 of Decision 1/CP.21.

Option 7.

Sub-option 7.1

  • Agrees that the NDCs referred above will have a time frame up to 2035.
  • Parties may further include an [indicative] 2040 target.

Sub-option 7.2

  • Agrees that the NDCs referred above will have a time frame up to 2035 or 2040
  • Should a Party communicate a NDC with a time frame up to 2040, such a Party shall include an [indicative] 2035 target [and][or] adjust its NDC by 2030.

Sub-option 7.3

Agrees that the NDCs referred above will have a time frame up to 2040.

Table D shows that sub-option 7.1 is the same as §23 (Table C) with the addition of optional indicative (+5) targets, and sub-option 7.2 the same as Option 3 (with mandated additional indicative mid-term targets for §24 Parties). Sub-option 7.3, finally, is the §24 (Option 3.2) without the updating.

The Glasgow Ambition Cycle

Introduction

The Glasgow Ambition Cycle is a proposal with a pedigree reaching beck to before Paris (see Müller et al. 2014). It first appeared in its current formulation it first appeared in an eponymous OCP blog post:

  • Request Parties to communicate by 2025a nationally determined contribution with a time frame up to 2035, and to do so every five years thereafter, pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 9, of the Agreement
  • Also request Parties to consider in 2025 updating any nationally determined contributions communicated before, and to do so every five years thereafter.

Table E illustrates not only the ‘core’ application of the GAC instructions (GAC.1) with just one new NDC being communicated in each round, but also variations (‘versions’) with additional actions:

Thus, in variation (1+i), an ‘indicative 2040 target’ (ind-T) is included in the 2025 communication; while GAC.2 includes the communication of an second NDC with a time frame up to 2040.[5]

While nothing in the GAC formulation prohibits these additional actions, it needs to be stressed that they are optional and not required by the GAC language.

Prerequisites for Maximizing Ambition

In order to discuss and compare the action content of SBI.51 options and that of the GAC – in particular with respect to their capacity to support the enhancement of (nationally determined) ambition – we need to clarify, what it is for an option to contain a ‘common’ time frame in this action specific context.

For the action content of proposal to enhance the impact of the Global Stock Takes and ensure comparability of ambition, it must involve synchronous NDC end-years, in the sense of all NDCs having the same end-years, which is what we mean by ‘having a common timeframe.’

If one is also intent on maximizing the potential for enhancing ambition, then it has been shown[6] that there is also a need for

  • synchronised updating (ambition enhancement), and
  • a notification window – i.e. the time between the communication year and the end year of the preceding NDC – for (first-time) communications of at least 5 years, in order maximize the potential of the synchronised ambition enhancement.

The GAC as Synthesis Option

As Table F clearly illustrates, all four options under consideration here have notification windows of at least 5 years.

However, only the GAC and (sub-) Options 7.1 and 7.3 have a CTF in the above-mentioned sense: the status quo Option 3 clearly allows for some Parties to have NDC end years not which others don’t (2025, 35, 45,…), and the situation is not remedied by introducing a (indicative) target in those ‘mid-term’ years (Options 2 and 7.2)

Table F also illustrates the way in which the GAC variations and SBI.51 (sub-) options under consideration (2, 3, 7) are included in each other:

  • The basic GAC activities, illustrated in (GAC.1) turn into the GAC.1+i procedure by adding a ‘+5 indicative target’, which in in the case of GAC.2 is replaced by a full ‘+5 NDC’.
  • The relationship between the SBI.51 sub-options and the GAC variations is graphically illustrated in the rows of Table F: sub-option 7.3, for example, is transformed into 2.b/3.b/7.2.b by adding an indicative mid-term target to the initial communication, and a mid-term update of the communicated NDCs.

Following the line of argument in Müller and Kumarsingh (2020), it follows that the GAC proposal is flexible enough to harness the advantages of all the Madrid while avoiding their disadvantages.


[1] Fore more on the features and background of the GAC see the list of selected literature below.

[2] Rule 16 Any item of the agenda of an ordinary session, consideration of which has not been completed at the session, shall be included automatically in the agenda of the next ordinary session, unless otherwise decided by the Conference of the Parties.”[Draft Rule of Procedures]

[3] There are many diverse conceptions of the nature of target periods and periods of implementation of a particular NDC, but in practice, they always have the same end-year, which is why they can be identified by reference to this end year, as is the case in para. 23 and 24: ‘containing a time frame up YYYY’ means, in practice, the same as ‘ending in YYYY’.

[4] ‘YYYY NDC’ = ‘NAC with end-year YYYY’ = ‘NDC containing a time frame up to YYYY’

[5] For more on this version, see ‘The case of the European Union’ in Müller, B., C. Bhushan and X. Li (2021), ‘The Glasgow Ambition Cycle – Domestic Considerations‘, Oxford Climate Policy, 16 March 2021.

[6] See, for example, Müller, B., and K. Kumarsingh (2020), ‘The risks of not adopting a Paris Agreement Ambition Cycle at COP 26 in Glasgow‘, Oxford Climate Policy, August 2020


Common Time Frames: Reducing the Number of Options for Glasgow

Aim and Background

This blog post aims to suggest a way in which whittle down the multitude of proposals concerning a Common Time Frame (CTF) for the Paris Agreement to a more manageable number without losing the key features of the originals.

For this, the post considers the different ways in which the existing proposals have been described and proposes a conceptual scheme not only to make them comparable, but synthesise them into smaller number of ‘synthesis options’ – preferably with all the advantages but none of the disadvantages of the originals. Indeed, the post aims to demonstrate that the Glasgow Ambition Cycle is a synthesis option that captures all the proposal in that manner.

But before turning to accomplish this, a few words on the historical background of this issue.

At COP 21 in Paris (2015), it was agreed that the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) “shall consider common time frames for nationally determined contributions at its first session”[Art. 4.10]. In Marrakech, the year after, the CMA agreed to refer the matter to the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) which, in 2017 in Bonn (SBI 47), “invited Parties and observers to submit, by 31 March 2018, their views on common time frames for NDCs … including on, but not limited to, the usefulness of and options for common time frames and the advantages and disadvantages of those options, for consideration at SBI 48 (April–May 2018)”[SBI 47 conclusions].

By May 2018, 15 Parties had made submissions, which were analyzed in an OCP/ecbi Discussion Note (see below), but the SBI deliberations didn’t progress beyond List of Bullet points by the co-facilitators (SBI.48.2, September 2019). 

The first, and hitherto only decision on the matter was taken at CMA.1 in Katowice when it was decided “that Parties shall apply common time frames to their nationally determined contributions to be implemented from 2031 onward”(Decision 6/CMA.1).  

SBI.50 (June 2019) resulted in an informal note listing 6 options, which was picked up and expanded to 10 options at SBI.51 in Madrid (December 2019), where however the deliberations were rolled over under Rule 16 and have not been taken up since due to the COVID pandemic. What did take place since then was a Technical Dialogue in November 2020, and an Informal Consultation of heads of delegations by the COP Presidencies in April 2021, all of which pointing to a desire by Parties to settle this issue at COP 26 in Glasgow, and consequently, to reduce the number of options that are currently under consideration.

This paper will focus on the 6 options contained in the SBI.50 Options Note. The full set the SBI.51 will be discussed in a forthcoming Technical Paper produced by OCP as strategic partner of AOSIS.

What Timeframes?

One of the key obstacles to progress in the CTF negotiations has been that Parties do not have a common understanding on what ‘timeframe’ actually refers to, let alone what it is to have a ‘common timeframe’.

In June 2018, OCP published an in-depth analysis of this situation on the basis of the Party submissions requested at SBI.47 (Müller 2018.a). It showed that Parties were essentially using two types of interpretations of ‘timeframe’: a material- and a procedural one. The material interpretation is about time intervals associated with the NDCs – to be precise, about target- and implementation periods, and mostly involves references to their lengths. The procedural interpretation is about timetables for the processes of communicating and updating NDCs. 

Subsequent work based on this analysis (listed below in Selected Publications) did suggest a way to “synthesise” CTF proposals, such as the ones contained in the SBI.50 Options Note, by describing their specific action content, that is to say the concrete instructions they contain with regards to who does what, when and with respect to which NDC (as identified by its endpoint).

The paradigm formulation of this type of specific action content is given in paragraphs 23 and 24 of Decision 1/CP.21, and the same language is used in formulating the Glasgow Ambition Cycle proposal to be discussed in the next section as synthesising these two paragraphs into a single common time frame proposal in a way which preserves the advantages of both while avoiding the disadvantages of either:

Decision 1/CP.21 (Adoption of the Paris Agreement):

23. Requests those Parties whose intended nationally determined contribution pursuant to decision 1/CP.20 contains a time frame up to 2025 to communicate by 2020 a new nationally determined contribution and to do so every five years thereafter pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 9, of the Agreement

24. Also requests those Parties whose intended nationally determined contribution pursuant to decision 1/CP.20 contains a time frame up to 2030 to communicate or update by 2020 these contributions and to do so every five years thereafter pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 9, of the Agreement

Analysis of SBI.50 Options

Turning now to analyzing the proposals listed in the SBI.50 Options Note (appended below) with regard to their specific action content, the first thing that needs to be highlighted is that not all of them actually have this sort of specific action content: Neither Option 1 nor Option 4 contain references to specific NDCs or communication/updating years. As reflected in Table 1, the others do contain information as to who is meant to do what, when, and with respect to which NDC.

Given that with respect to action content, Option 3 covers Option 6, and Option 5 is covered by Option 2, there are really only two distinct Options in the SBI.50 Note with respect to actions they refer to, namely Options 2 and 3 (with their action content graphically represented in Tables 2 and 3, respectively).

Option 2:

  • Decides that common time frames … shall be five years between the end points of two successive NDCs.
  • Further decides that Parties should communicate two successive nationally determined contributions, starting in 2025, with starting points of 1 January 2031 and 1 January 2036 respectively.
  • Urges Parties to communicate and update their nationally determined contributions in 2025 and every five years thereafter, consistent with progression.

Option 3 (= continue with status quo):

  • Invites each Party to communicate by 2025 a nationally determined contribution with a time frame up to 2035 or 2040.
  • Requests:
  1. those Parties whose nationally determined contributions contain a time frame up to 2035 to communicate by 2030 their respective new nationally determined contributions with a time frame up to 2040; and
  2. those Parties whose nationally determined contributions contain a time frame up to 2040 to communicate or update by 2030 these nationally determined contributions.

Table 3.a illustrates the action content of Option 3, and Table 3.b illustrates at first sight that Option 3 is simply the continuation of the status quo as prescribed in §23 and §24 of Decision 1/CP.21. 

The GAC as Synthesis Option

Introduction

The Glasgow Ambition Cycle is a proposal with a pedigree reaching beck to before Paris (see Müller et al. 2014). It first appeared in its current formulation it first appeared in an eponymous OCP blog post

The Glasgow Ambition Cycle:

  1. Request Parties to communicate by 2025 a nationally determined contribution with a time frame up to 2035, and to do so every five years thereafter, pursuant to Article 4, paragraph 9, of the Agreement
  2. Also request Parties to consider in 2025 updating any nationally determined contributions communicated before, and to do so every five years thereafter

Table 4.a illustrates the minimal action content of the GAC. Table 4.b illustrates a slightly more For more on this variant, elaborate variant, with an additional (first) communication of a 2040 NDC in 2025. Nothing in the GAC forbids such an addition, but it is important to stress that this addition is purely voluntary and not required by the GAC language.

Prerequisites for Maximizing Ambition

In order to discuss and compare the action content of SBI.50 options and the GAC, in particular with respect to their capacity to support the enhancement of (nationally determined) ambition, we need to clarify, in this action specific context, what it is for an option to contain a ‘common’ time frame.

For the action content of proposal to enhance the impact of the Global Stock Takes and ensure comparability of ambition, it must involve synchronous NDC end-years, in the sense that all NDCs having the same end-years, which is what we mean by ‘having a common timeframe’.

If one is also intent on maximizing the potential for enhancing ambition, then it has been shown that there is also a need for

  • synchronised updating (ambition enhancement), and
  • a notification window – i.e. the time between the communication year and the end year of the preceding NDC – for (first-time) communications of at least 5 years, in order maximize the potential of the synchronised ambition enhancement.

Conclusion

Table 5 clearly illustrates that all three options under consideration here have notification windows of at least 5 years, and – except the status quo Option 3 – they do have a common timeframe in the above-mentioned sense. Table 5 also illustrates the way in which the GAC captures (subsumes) the other two: 

Option 2 is exactly the same as the second GAC variant discussed above (Table 4.b).

As to Option 3, Table 5 shows that: 

  1. (the basic variant of) the GAC both captures the action content of the §23 sub-Option 3.a and enhances its ambition friendliness by adding the element of synchronised updating; and 
  2. how the §24 sub-Option 3.b is contained in the GAC.b variant.

In light of this and the finding of a recent OCP Blog Post (summarised below) that the GAC not only preserves all the advantages of §24 while at the same time avoiding all its disadvantages, this finding can now be transferred to all the options (with action content) currently under consideration (i.e. listed in the SBI.50 Note)  

Selected Publications

Reverse chronological order.

The Glasgow Ambition Cycle — Domestic Considerations

The case of India, of China, and of the European Union

by Benito Müller[1] (EU), Chandra Bhushan[2] (India), and Xin Li[3] (China)[4]

Political Summary

Two 5-year cycles currently drive the implementation of the Paris Agreement (PA): one of communicating national targets (“Nationally Determined Contributions” NDCs) and one of taking stock of global efforts. In order to complete the ambition mechanism of the PA, which is critical for its full operationalisation and the achievement of its objectives, another 5-year cycle, the “Glasgow Ambition Cycle” (GAC), aimed at ratcheting up the collective ambition of NDCs, has been proposed. It is gaining significant traction and appeal for adoption at COP 26 in Glasgow under negotiations on Common Time Frames (CTF, see Ambition Cycle on course to land in Glasgow).  The GAC provides an elegant and non-controversial solution to the sticking options currently being negotiated, and is meant to start in 2025 when countries would be requested to:

  • communicate (at least) a 2035 NDC (‘with a time frame up to 2035’);
  • re-visit any NDCs communicated earlier to see whether, in light of changed circumstances, their ambition could be increased; and
  • repeat these two steps, ceteris paribus, every five years – thus in 2030 they would be: communicating a 2040 NDC and revisiting (inter alia) the 2035 NDC communicated five years earlier, and so forth.

As recently remarked by Marianne Karlsen (Chair of the UNFCCC/PA Subsidiary Body for Implementation): “Parties are increasingly realizing the importance of the issue [CTF] to the overall dynamics and well-functioning of the Paris Agreement. Of course, it is important to keep in mind that CTF is very much a political issue because establishing timeframes often involves parliaments and cabinets. So, this has to be something that politicians also need to get on the radar to work with.”[5]

This is why this OCP blog post takes a look at domestic considerations and demonstrates that the GAC is flexible enough to be accommodated and workable in three key Parties: India, China and the European Union.

India. India has a well-established revolving five-year electricity planning cycle consisting of Electric Power Surveys (EPS) and National Electricity Plans (NEP). The Surveys involve annual demand projections for the next ten years as well as long-term (‘perspective’) projections for 15- and 20-year time horizons. The Plans contain a detailed growth strategy, including investments in generation, transmission, and distribution, for the next five years and the roadmap for the subsequent five years.

The 20th EPS, to be published in 2022, will contain yearly projections of electricity demand till 2030 and long-term projections for 2035 and 2040. The 4th NEP will be available in 2023; it will contain a detailed plan for 2022-27 and a perspective plan for 2027-32. As the electricity sector is the single largest source of GHG emissions in India, accounting for 47 per cent of the country’s total emissions, its planning cycle can be argued to be already in conformity with the GAC, and therefore in principle, the GAC can be accommodated in India’s NDC communication cycle, given the information in the 20th EPS/4th NEP.

China. China’s overall socio-economic development policy in the first half of the 21st century is dominated by two ‘Centenary Goals’; these mark the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2021 and the centenary of the People’s Republic in 2049. As the mid-point between these two centenaries, 2035 has received special attention in China’s current policy making. The deliberations for the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) include, for the first time, a longer-term vision with a 2035 target, which will set the development pathways for the next 15 years. This combination of short-term and long-term targets in China’s policy making is significant for global climate policy, not least because it is perfectly consistent with the proposed Glasgow Ambition Cycle.

The European Union. A key domestic consideration in the EU for determining the timeframe of climate targets is that implementing legislation can take up to 5 years to be adopted. The 2020 communication of a 2030 NDC update shows that a 2025 communication of a 2035 NDC should (in principle) be possible, even if a 2040 timeframe remains the preferred option among some of the key domestic constituents. Given that the Paris Agreement does not preclude the communication of multiple NDCs, there is no need to choose between the two options: the EU can communicate both a 2035 and a 2040 NDC in 2025, and thus take into account all domestic preferences and do so in a manner consistent with the Glasgow Ambition Cycle. The communication of a 2035 in order to facilitate a harmonisation of the GAC should not be seen as a mutually exclusive option, but rather a demonstration of political flexibility that will not prejudice the substantive essence of the EU’s overall ambition. 

The Case of India: Electric Power Surveys and National Electricity Plans

India has an elaborate system for developing a National Electricity Plan every five years.[6] This system has been codified by an act of parliament – the Electricity Act of 2003 (‘the Act’). The Act obligates the Central Electricity Authority to formulate policies and plans for the development of the electricity sector, and to conduct and publish an Electric Power Survey (EPS) every five years to forecast both the country’s electricity demand and the contribution of various sources of electricity to meet that demand. The Act also stipulates the preparation of a National Electricity Plan (NEP) every five years, in accordance with India’s National Electricity Policy.

The EPS forecasts, every five years, the electricity demand for the entire country and for each State and Union Territory in the short, medium, and long term. Year-wise electricity demand projections are made for the next ten years, while long-term (perspective) demand projections are carried out for 15- and 20-year time horizons. So far, nineteen EPS have been published, the latest one in January 2017. 

The 20th EPS will be published in 2022. It will contain:

  • Annual electricity demand projections for each State, Union Territory, Region, and All India in detail for the years 2021 to 2031 (see figure above);[7]
  • Electricity demand for the terminal years 2036 and 2041.

The NEP contains a five-year detailed plan and a 15-year perspective plan. It includes:

  • Short-term and long-term demand forecast for different regions;
  • Suggested areas/locations for capacity additions in generation and transmission, keeping in view the economics of generation and transmission, losses in the system, load centre requirements, grid stability, security of supply, quality of power (including voltage profile, etc.), and environmental considerations including rehabilitation and resettlement;
  • Integration of possible locations of capacity additions with the transmission system and development of the national grid – including the type of transmission systems and requirement of redundancies;
  • Different technologies available for efficient generation, transmission, and distribution; and,
  • Fuel choices based on economy, energy security, and environmental considerations.

The latest (Third) NEP was published in January 2018. It contains a review of the previous five-years (2012-17), a detailed plan for the next five years (2017-22), and a perspectives plan for 2022-27. 

The Fourth National Electricity Plan will be available in 2023. It will contain a detailed plan for 2022-27 and a perspective plan for 2027-32.

From the above, it is clear that a revolving five-year planning cycle for the electricity sector is well-established in the country. As the electricity sector is the single largest source of GHG emissions in India (accounting for 47 per cent of the country’s total emissions, including LULUCF[8]), its planning cycle could become a basis for India’s NDC communication cycle.

The Case of China: Enhanced Five-Year Planning

At the 15th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1997, President Jiang Zemin introduced two ‘Centenary Goals’ to guide the socio-economic development in China. The first goal refers to the centenary, in 2021, of the founding of the CCP, with the Centenary Goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects; the second one referring to the centenary, in 2049, of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, with the goal for China to become a basically modern socialist country.

At the 19th CPC National Congress in 2017, President Xi Jinping brought forward this goal to 2035 as a new mid-term goal, with the second Centenary Goal changing to China becoming fully modernized by 2050.

Three years later, in October 2020, President Xi Jinping introduced, for the first time, a longer-term vision – a 2035 development target – in the course of the discussions on the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) at the 19th meeting of the CPC Central Committee.

This new combination of short-term and longer-term targets in China’ policy making is significant not only for China’s carbon emissions peaking and carbon-neutrality targets, but also for the international climate regime. 

At the time of writing, some provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities have published their 14th FYP and 2035 long-term policy recommendations. Among these, the important mid- and long-term policy goals related to climate change include (but are not limited to): clarifying the carbon emissions peaking action plan, limiting coal use, increasing the share of renewable energy sources in the energy mix, promoting the intelligence and digitalization of energy development models, and developing green financial service systems. These targets will become the backbone of climate policy making at regional levels in the near future.

Since the formulation of its first five-year plan 70 years ago, China has completed thirteen FYPs, and FYPs will continue to provide guidance to the socio-economic development in China, despite debates on the effectiveness of such administrative economic planning. FYPs fit well with the proposed Glasgow Ambition Cycle, particularly in conjunction with the new longer-term 2035 planning horizon.

In short, the establishment of the 2035 target enables China to play an important role in international climate change negotiations. This is crucial for the ability of China’s own adaptive measures to engage with climate change impacts domestically, and also for the joint efforts of the international community to combat climate change. Combining the carbon emissions peaking and carbon-neutrality timelines, China has the opportunity to demonstrate its contribution to climate change mitigation and also its leadership, in the near future.

The Case of the EU: The Issue of Implementing Legislation

The Glasgow Ambition Cycle crucially requires the communication of a 2035 NDC by 2025. Could this be a realistic option for the EU? A practical way to assess possibilities is to look at precedents – in this case at EU past communications under the Paris Agreement (PA).

On 6 March 2015 (see Table 1 below), the EU communicated their Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) with a ‘point target’ of emissions in 2030 being at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels, which became its initial NDC on 5 October 2016, when the EU ratified the PA.

This was based on an EU-wide emission trajectory with annual figures from 2021 to 2030, formulated and adopted by EU heads of government in 2014. The subsequent formulation and adoption of the legislation required for implementing the 40 per cent target took almost five years, beginning in July 2015 and ending in December 2020 with the setting of the final 40 per cent target trajectory.

In March 2020, the Commission promulgated the European Climate Law [ECL], which not only mandates the EU to be ‘climate-neutral’ by 2050, but also “proposes the adoption of a 2030-2050 EU-wide trajectory for greenhouse gas emission reductions”[ECL], and five-yearly assessments of “the consistency of EU and national measures with the climate-neutrality objective and the 2030-2050 trajectory”[ECL], synchronized with the Global Stocktakes of the Paris Agreement.

On 19 June 2020, Croatia and the Commission made a ‘Voluntary Submission‘ to the UNFCCC (on behalf of the EU and its Member States) regarding the ‘Future of the UNFCCC process.’ The submission left no doubt whatsoever that “The ambition cycle built upon the global stocktake and the regular submission of NDCs and adaptation communications, … will be the central feature in driving enhanced climate action and support so as to achieve the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement.”  Indeed, it stipulates that the “UNFCCC process needs to maximise its catalysing role for climate action and ambition” and that the “success of the UNFCCC process should be measured by its ability … to catalyse higher ambition”.  We could not agree more with this and the need to put “the ambition cycle … at the centre of the UNFCCC process”, except that the capacity of the ‘ambition cycle’ to maximise ambition is not fully realised without the addition of the GAC.

On 17 December 2020, the EU communicated an update of their initial NDC with a new, more ambitious target of at least 55 per cent below the 1990 level for 2030 emissions and – according to the EU Climate Action Progress Report, November 2020 (see also Figure 1) – the Commission is currently determining the annual emissions allocations (AEAs) for each country for the years 2021 – 2030, to take into account the updated, more ambitious, 2030 target.

Figure 1. Emissions in sectors covered by effort-sharing legislation 2005-2030 and Annual Emission Allocations (AEAs), EU-27 (Mt CO2 eq) [Fig. 4 in Climate Action Progress Report 2020]

What is to happen next? In a first instance, new implementing legislation for the 55 per cent target will have to be adopted, and it is expected that this will take (at least) until 2024, which means that in practice the implementation of the updated 55 per cent NDC is unlikely to commence before 2025.

Box 1. Draft by the European Council for the implementing regulation of the ECL (12 December 2020)

Assuming the adoption of the ECL by 2022, the next milestone will be the first of the ECL-mandated assessments in 2023. Following the pattern seen in the run up to the 2015 communication of the (I)NDC, it stands to reason – not least on the basis of the position of the European Council (see Box 1) – that this will be followed by the formulation and adoption of a second ten-year trajectory (2031-40, see Figure 2), presumably based on the 2050 net-zero trajectory mandated in the ECL. 

Figure 2. EU Domestic and Paris Agreement Cycles

According to Art. 4.9 of the PA, all Parties have to communicate an NDC in 2025. The key question in the present context is about what timeframes the EU could realistically consider in light of domestic considerations?

One of the key domestic constraints, the time it takes to adopt the required implementing legislation (up to 5 years, as mentioned above), for one rules out another update of the 2030 NDC.

Given the INDC precedent, one option clearly is the communication of a 2040 NDC. But, to be sure, the 2020 communication of the updated 2030 NDC equally provides a precedent for the option of communicating a 2035 NDC, which seems to be the preferred option of a number of Member States,[9] and is consistent with the GAC. Fortunately, Art. 4.9 allows for multiple NDCs to be communicated simultaneously, so that there is no need to choose one over the other. 

In short, keeping in mind the domestic legislative constraints, it is possible (as illustrated in Figure 2) for the EU to include the communication pattern set in Paris in a cycle that would be consistent with the GAC by communicating both a 2035 and a 2040 NDC in 2025, updating the 2040 NDC in 2030, and communicating a 2045 NDC and the 2050 (‘net-zero’) NDC in 2035.

Table 1. EU Climate Legislation/Regulation/NDC Timetable.  Courtesy of Artur Runge-Metzger

[1] Oxford Climate Policy and University of Oxford.

[2] International Forum for Environment, Sustainability & Technology.

[3] Oxford Climate Policy.

[4] The authors would like to acknowledge, with gratitude, feedback received (in alphabetical order) by Annika Christell, Kishan Kumarsingh, Geert Fremout, and Artur Runge-Metzger.

[5] Source: In conversation with SBI and SBSTA Chairs ERCST.

[6] References:

[7] Note that strictly speaking, the projections are made for financial years, starting in April and ending in March of the following calendar year. However, to avoid cumbersome notation, the calendar year of the initial nine months is here used to designate the financial year in question, i.e., ‘2020’ instead of ‘FY 2020-21’.

[8] MoEFCC. (2018). India: Second Biennial Update Report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India.

[9] See Appendix 3 in Enhance Climate Ambition in 2020: Here’s looking at EU, kid!

AMBITION CYCLE ON COURSE TO LAND IN GLASGOW

by Kishan Kumarsingh, Benito Müller, and Anju Sharma

Outcomes of the 2020 Technical Climate Dialogue on Common Time Frame(s)

Five years ago, countries submitted their first Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Research institutions went to work calculating their net impact on emissions and their conclusions were unanimous: the NDCs were not ambitious enough to prevent catastrophic climate change.

In response to these conclusions, governments have come under considerable public pressure at home and globally to ratchet up the ambition of their initial NDCs. The 2020 Climate Ambition Summit on 12 December 2020 was meant to be a moment of truth with national leaders expected to announce enhancements in NDC ambition: 45 countries announced new, updated, or revised NDCs, yet the effect on overall ambition is likely to fall short of what is required, not least because several large emitters were conspicuous by their absence.

While the Paris Agreement allows Parties to adjust their existing NDC to enhance the level of ambition at any time (Article 4.11), it does not specify how often this should happen. There is only an indirect indication of this in Article 14.3, which calls for the outcomes of the five-yearly Global Stocktakes (GSTs) to inform Parties in updating and enhancing their actions and support – suggesting that such updates and enhancements should take place every five years.[1] In a recent LSE Commentary, Peter Betts, former EU and UK lead negotiator, notes: “The COP process is not perfect; but underlying its dramas and process fights are real perceived national interests: how should emissions reductions be shared, and who should be supported financially? … A COP Decision reinforcing the need for five-yearly revision of NDCs could help.”

The Paris Agreement also stipulates that Parties will consider common time frames (CTF) for NDCs (Article 4.10), and a number of Parties have seen this as an opportunity to address this lack of periodic synchronised ambition enhancement. Agreement on the rules for CTF has, however, proven tricky and was not possible in Katowice in 2018, or in Madrid the following year. (Agreement was also not possible on the rules for  Article 6 and transparency, both of which are closely tied to the operationalisation of the CTF). While the postponement of the 2020 Climate Conference (COP26) has further delayed the adoption of these rules, negotiators have been working on the sidelines to ensure that they can hit the tracks running when COP26 takes place, currently scheduled for 2021.

CTF was, therefore, a key element for discussion at the virtually held 2020 UN Climate Change Dialogues, where a technical dialogue on the issue took place on 2 December 2020. The interventions during the Dialogue revealed some important points:

  • The issue of CTF is important for the full synchronisation and effectiveness of the mechanisms of the Paris Agreement, such as NDC communication, GSTs, and the enhanced transparency framework.
  • The technical discussion underlying the well-known negotiating options over the past negotiation sessions have been thorough and exhaustive.
  • A decision will require consideration and possible adjustments of national policy cycles and national requirements.
  • Agreement on a decision on CTF at COP26 will signal a strong commitment by Parties to find workable solutions, conclude the Katowice rule book, and move to full implementation of the Paris Agreement.
  • A solution to CTF is not difficult and a workable approach can be found;
  • Parties are willing to consider the utility of the “Glasgow Ambition Cycle” proposal, taking into account the issues highlighted regarding the implications of not arriving at a decision.
  • The issue has matured to the point where Parties are ready and willing to arrive at a decision at COP26.
  • A decision on CTF ought to be part of the package of decisions at COP 26.

Parties are clearly willing to explore options outside of their individual and group positions towards a solution in Glasgow. The positive nature of the discussions seems to suggest that notwithstanding the need to consider national circumstances and requirements, a decision on CTF, against the background of the three main negotiating options, is not only possible, but achievable, and that its time has come. The discussions also revealed that the landing zone for such a decision may be in sight: “The proposed Ambition Cycle can unite all the options on the table in a way that retains all their advantages, while avoiding the significant risks they pose on their own.”[2]

Dialogue Report

I. The Opening

The Technical Dialogue on Common Time Frames for Nationally Determined Contributions referred to in Article 4, paragraph 10 of the Paris Agreement  was convened  by Marianne Karlsen, the Chair of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI). It was chaired by the lead author of this post, Kishan Kumarsingh; and included a presentation by second author Benito Müller. Kumarsingh invited the 73 Party participants in the Dialogue to focus on two questions:

  • What approach to CTF will allow all of the processes and mechanisms of the Paris Agreement to function as intended?
  • From your perspective, what are the most important factors to consider in arriving at a practical and workable time frame of an NDC, and how can these factors be accommodated in a solution on common time frames?

This was followed by a presentation by Yamide Dagnet, World Resources Institute (WRI), on the importance of an agreement on CTF in 2021. Dagnet said agreement on this issue will allow the GST, the Article 6 market mechanisms, and the enhanced transparency framework of the Paris Agreement to function as intended. She noted that Parties still have some way to go to reach the 1.5°C threshold recommended by the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Paris Agreement calls for the communication of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years, and for the NDCs to be enhanced on the basis of GSTs occurring also every five years. This enhancement on the basis of the emissions gap, the adaptation and resilience deficit, and the alignment of financial flows, will allow the “arc of ambition” to get closer to achieving the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals.

The NDCs and the GSTs are therefore at the heart of the arc of ambition, Dagnet said, and of the Paris Agreement’s ambition cycle. A decision on CTF can facilitate ambition by accelerating action at an established rhythm. If Parties have different timeframes, she said the GST will not be able to equitably reflect progress on action and support when countries are at different points in their NDC cycle. Some Parties will be concluding their NDC implementation, while others will be in the middle of implementation when the GST occurs, and this will clearly complicate the assessment of aggregate progress.

Dagnet said ensuring that all Parties are at the same point of their NDC cycle is important to ensure that the GST can consider collective progress in light of the best available science and equity, as required under Article 14.1 of the Paris Agreement.

If Parties have a ten-year timeframe, she continued, they will not be able to make the most of the GSTs, to reflect the achievements of NDCs and boost future climate actions and support. The Paris Agreement is already built on a five-year cycle.

Describing the linkages between CTF and Article 6, Dagnet noted that the market mechanisms of the Paris Agreement will be more complex than those of the Kyoto Protocol, and securing a robust measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) system will be challenging in the first place, especially for many developing countries. The setting is made even more complex by the variety of NDC types, and the lack of certainty and predictability of markets. If the period of NDC implementation is different between Parties participating in the market mechanisms, this will add another layer of complexity. The impact of the use of those mechanisms on global efforts may not be clear for as long as ten years. Enforcing Article 6 principles of environmental integrity and the avoidance of double counting will become even more difficult.

Dagnet said a five-year “plan-implement-review” cycle at the national level will allow for a better understanding and acceleration of collective progress towards the Paris Agreement goals; allow for taking into account the outcome of the GST every five years; and be more responsive to technological, economic, and societal changes, needs, and opportunities. She noted that countries are already adjusting their governance and institutional structures accordingly.

She concluded that in the current state of climate emergency, Parties cannot wait beyond COP26 in Glasgow to come to an agreement on the CTF issue.

Benito Müller, Oxford Climate Policy, then gave a presentation on “Status Quo Risks and how to deal with them”.

He pointed to two papers[3] that have looked at the risks of not coming to an agreement on the CTF issue in Glasgow. Noting that the majority (80%) of initial NDCs communicated by Parties in 2015 have a time frame up to 2030, he recalled that the Paris Decision (§24) requests the Parties in question to communicate or update these NDCs by 2020, and do so every five years thereafter. He also noted that the Article 4.9 five-yearly communication requirement applies even to Parties with a ten-year timeframe.

In 2023, a GST will take place, which will be able to take into account forward-looking information for the NDCs up to 2030. For the countries that in 2025 choose to communicate a new NDC, the new NDC will be up to 2040. For those who choose to update their 2030 NDC, however, there will be “a cliff edge of information” in 2030, and the forward-looking 2028 GST would be meaningless because there is no information beyond two and a half years.

These countries would then present a new NDC up to 2040 in 2030, but that would not be informed by the GST. This clearly suboptimal situation will arise every ten years thereafter.

Müller then considered the implications of this cycle on the financial mechanism. In 2020, he said, information is available up to 2030, but the vintage of this information is 15 years, since the NDCs were communicated in 2015. This is too distant, particularly for the needs of contingent NDCs. The first replenishment of the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has just taken place, and the 2030 NDC will be updated now (in 2020). The eighth replenishment of the Global Environment Facility (GEF8), the second GCF replenishment, and GEF9 will be reasonably placed in terms of forward-looking information about financial needs. According to Plan A, the 2030 NDCs will be re-updated in 2025, which will mean that GEF10 will be a cliff edge, with no forward-looking information whatsoever, and the same will happen for the GCF’s sixth replenishment. 

Müller then introduced the “Glasgow Ambition Cycle” (GAC) and demonstrated how it could mitigate these risks. In 2020, he said, we will have the 2030 NDCs communicated. The first step in the GAC is that Parties would communicate a 2035 NDC by 2025 (see Box 1), so the information horizon would be till 2035 in 2025, and avoid the cliff edge. The 2023 GST will have information at two levels – for 2030, and 2035.

For a more detailed formulation, see ‘A Glasgow Ambition Cycle’

The second part of the GAC is that in 2025, Parties are requested to update their 2030 NDCs, and then do the same thing every five years. So for the second iteration, they will be invited or requested to communicate their 2040 NDC by 2030; and to update the 2035 one in 2030, and so forth. This will create a rolling cycle with NDCs updated every five years. He then showed how in this scenario, every single replenishment will be covered in terms of forward-looking information.

Müller said the GAC also creates space for equity. Parties will communicate their 2035 NDCs by 2025, there will be a GST in 2028, and an update in 2030. The five years between 2025-2030 will provide an important space to governments and civil society to consider the adequacy, but also the equity and fairness of contributions. While there is no way to impose fairness, the GAC will at least create the essential time and the space to discuss it, by making everything transparent. A more equitable sharing of ambition will, in turn, maximize the enhanced ambition.

Müller concluded that GAC can unite all the options on the table in a way that retains all their advantages, while avoiding the significant risks they pose on their own. The solution is simple – if countries can do a 2035 NDC, that is all that is required. If Parties want to communicate at 2040 NDC in 2025, they can do both, as it doesn’t take more effort to have a 2035 NDC in addition to a 2040 NDC.

II. Party Interventions

How did Parties react to the GAC idea as discussed in the kick-off presentations? What did they say as regards to whether there should be a single CTF or several, and to whether this should be decided at COP 26 in Glasgow?

a) Reactions to the Glasgow Ambition Cycle (GAC)

The Glasgow Ambition Cycle, originally called ‘Dynamic Contribution Cycle’ and submitted to the UNFCCC by Brazil in November 2014, was resubmitted as position of the LDC Group in April 20018, and as part of ‘Option 8’ in the SBI negotiations by Switzerland at COP 25 in November 2019.[4]

So when Switzerland took the screen on behalf of the EIG, and subsequently Bangladesh on behalf of the LDCs, it was good to hear that they remain fully in support of the GAC. 

Switzerland, supporting the ‘5 + indicative 5’ version of the GAC, argued that this “allows more ambition through a functioning  ratcheting-up mechanism.” Moreover, she put forward that “bearing in mind how fast new technologies are being developed, and the increasing pace of the transformation of various sectors, it would be a missed opportunity, in our view, not to give ourselves the opportunity to update our plans and strategies on a regular basis.”

Zimbabwe, speaking on behalf of the African Group of Negotiators (AGN), also endorsed the GAC idea,[5] building on a 2018 AGN submission, and highlighting the importance of providing space for equity mentioned in Müller’s presentation. Supporting the AGN intervention, South Africa stressed that “in a climate emergency, we need to do as much as possible as fast as possible and dynamically,” citing the danger of otherwise locking-in low ambition.

Panama, speaking on behalf of the Independent Association of Latin America and the Caribbean (AILAC), also explicitly supported the GAC “to enable the ambition mechanism of the Paris Agreement to operate in a manner that guides all Parties to the greatest possible ambition” by providing “regular opportunity for the latest scientific, technical, and stocktaking information, and the outcome of the Global Stocktake to directly inform subsequent NDC commitments in as timely a manner as possible” and by giving “citizens, companies, investors, and the international community clear visibility of the direction of travel the country is embarking upon.”

Sweden, speaking on behalf of the EU, informed participants that they do not presently have a preferred option, apart from NDCs being “communicated five years ahead of the start of its implementation” (which is perfectly compatible with the GAC), and that they are “very interested in hearing Parties’ views” at the Dialogue.

Belize reminded the audience that the different options on the table may be preferred for different reasons (preference for raising ambition every five years, or for having longer, ten-year implementation periods), but concluded that “it may be time that we start to meet each other in the middle, and try to find an option that gives everyone what they’re looking for.”

b) The Mandate issue, and how the GAC can resolve the differences.

None of the interventions explicitly rejected the GAC idea, but one issue did divide opinion, namely whether the mandate for the CTF negotiations is to find a single time frame common to all; or whether it allows for multiple time frames (common to some) to be applied as they are at present.

China, on behalf of the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDCs), supported by Saudi Arabia, on behalf of the Arab Group, endorsed the former interpretation, while Belize, for example, said the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) believes “there should be a common time frame for all Parties going forward”, and suggested removing the ‘s’ and start referring to ‘a common time frame’.

As a matter of fact, we need to do neither to accommodate all sides. The LMDC proposal, as stated by China, is that “in 2025, the 2035 target and also the 2040 target are all allowed as target year to be communicated.” China also stressed that the LMDCs support “a very inclusive arrangement,” instead of “closing the door for 10 years as one of the options”.

As emphasised at the very end of the OCP presentation, the proposed GAC language (Box 1) does not prohibit anyone from communicating a 2040 NDC in 2025. All they need to do is to also communicate a 2035 one. It is in this manner that the GAC proposal can, as noted by Switzerland, “accommodate both the preference for a five-year and the preference for a ten-year NDC, while preserving the ratcheting up mechanism, which is at the heart of the Paris Agreement, and is really crucial if we want to safeguard ambition.”

c) Decision in Glasgow

SBI Chair Marianne Karlsen said in her opening remarks that is her “intention and profound hope” that the informal exchanges during the Climate Dialogue will add value to Parties’ continued deliberations so that when formal negotiations are resumed at the next SBI session, Parties “are well prepared to navigate this to a landing at COP 26.”

 “Resolving this outstanding issue as soon as possible would help to unleash the full potential of the Paris Agreement,” concurred Huw Davies, on behalf of the COP 26 Presidency, in his closing remarks. “We’re keen to support Parties and Marianne the SBI Chair however we can come to an agreement on this issue by COP 26, and we’ll continue to work closely with the SBI Chair over the coming months.”

While not all participants addressed this issue in their interventions, of the four who did raise it, three were clearly for, and the fourth one consistent with having a CTF decision as part of the key Glasgow outcome package (see Box 2).


[1] Note that Article 4.9 requires Parties to communicate an NDC every five years, and equally requires the preparation of the NDCs to be informed by the GST.

[2] K. Kumarsingh, “Climate ambition still hangs in the balance”, ecbi BRIEF, November 2020.

[3] B. Müller and K. Kumarsingh, “The risks of not adopting a Paris Agreement Ambition Cycle at COP 26 in Glasgow” OCP Blog, 31 August 2020. K. Kumarsingh, “Climate ambition still hangs in the balance”, ecbi BRIEF, November 2020.

[4] “2. Requests all Parties to communicate by 2025 a nationally determined contribution with a starting point of 1 January 2031 and a time frame up to 2035, and to do so every five years thereafter.”

[5] The “period of implementation should be five years, and successive NDCs should be communicated five years in advance of the beginning of the period of applicability”

The risks of not adopting a Paris Agreement Ambition Cycle at COP 26 in Glasgow

by Benito Müller and Kishan Kumarsingh*

Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ἡράκλειτος, Herakleitos; c. 535 BC – 475 BC

* The authors would like to express their gratitude for fee-back and contributions to Aglaja Espelage, Janine Felson, Geert Fremout, and Axel Michaelowa.

I. Summary

‘Ambition’, or rather the lack of it, currently headlines most discussions on the Paris Agreement. The term refers to how much countries are willing and able to do to combat climate change and its adverse impacts through the pledges in their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

According to Article 4.9 of the Paris Agreement, all Parties must communicate an NDC every five years starting in 2020. Each successive NDC has to “represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution and reflect its highest possible ambition”.[Art. 4.3]

While the ambition of an NDC is nationally determined, it can be internationally enabled or stifled. The importance of the latter should not be underestimated. The provision of finance, technology, and capacity is an important enabling factor, but countries will also peg their level of ambition on how much other countries (their peers) are willing to do. All countries have to do their fair and equitable share, as agreed in Article 4.3, reflecting “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances”.

The vast majority of the initial NDCs (over 80%) have a time frame up to 2030.[1] For them, paragraph 24 of Decision 1/CP.21 applies, requesting the countries in question: “to communicate or update by 2020 [these initial NDCs] and to do so every five years thereafter”. The problem is that this poses a number of significant risks.

Locking in low ambition

For one, there is the risk of locking in low ambition, for national and international reasons:

  • At the national level, planning for the longer-term (more than 10 years) as required under paragraph 24, introduces greater uncertainty – and therefore Parties are likely to opt for risk-averse conservative (low) ambition.
  • At the international level, there is no timetable for Parties to consider enhancing previously communicated ambition: everyone is waiting for everyone else, and there is no deadline for (informal) consultations to ensure a just and equitable distribution of ambition, with the effect that the initial risk-averse ambition remains unchanged.

Thwarting Global Stocktakes and Replenishments of Climate Funds

Under paragraph 24, there is a risk that every ten years, there is no information whatsoever on what Parties intend to do next. This not only introduces uncertainty for domestic stakeholders and hampers advance planning, but also thwarts:

  • the ex ante component of every second Global Stocktake, and by extension the ability to assess whether the global community is on target to achieve the 2°C/1.5°C trajectory; and
  • the ability to take into account the financial needs of developing countries as expressed in (‘conditional’) NDCs in the course of the replenishments of the multilateral climate funds. This may disadvantage developing countries in financing their NDCs.

Additional political risks

The further away a target, the greater the temptation to postpone action, with the intention of compensating later in the implementation period. This is a high-risk strategy.

Also, while longer-term targets can be updated in the mid-term, updating a previously communicated ambition may not generate the same public and political attention than the setting of a new target.

The Ambition Cycle: a simple and elegant remedy

These currently prevailing risks to equitable ambition under the Paris Agreement can be mitigated through two simple process requests, for Parties:

  • to communicate by 2025 their next NDC, ending in 2035 (‘with a time frame up to 2035’), and
  • in 2025 , to consider enhancing (‘updating’) the ambition of their initial 2030 NDC; and to repeat these two steps ceteris paribus every five years thereafter.

This ‘Ambition Cycle’ [2] will:

  • shorten the horizon of projections necessary to formulate NDCs;
  • provide for a five-year assessment phase;
  • create an ambition enhancement timetable that provides space for Parties to update their previously communicated ambitions in a fair and equitable manner, reflecting everyone’s highest possible ambition as referred to in Article 4.3;
  • enhance confidence in, and facilitate predictability for financing and means of implementation by ensuring that the periodic needs determination reports of the Standing Committee on Finance  and the replenishments of the multilateral climate funds can be informed by, and take into consideration, the needs of developing countries as reflected in their NDCs;
  • increase support for formulating NDCs by providing an NDC time frame common to all, and facilitate planning on how market mechanisms can be used to raise ambition and avoid double counting under Article 6; and
  • reduce the temptation to postpone action.

It would thus remedy the shortcomings of the 10-year time frame without impeding its advantages. At the same time, it is compatible with the ‘5-year’ and the ‘5+5-year’ options tabled by Parties in the common time frame negotiations. The proposed Ambition Cycle can unite all the options on the table in a way that retains all their advantages, while avoiding the significant risks they pose on their own.

II. The Prevailing Majority Set-up

As mentioned above, paragraph 24 requests those Parties whose intended nationally determined contribution … contains a time frame up to 2030 to communicate or update by 2020 these contributions and to do so every five years thereafter. The problem is that  it does not actually determine what exactly is to be done every five years after 2020. ‘Plan A’ and ‘Plan B’  below describe what in our opinion are the most plausible implementations of paragraph 24.

Plan A. ‘Update-first’ (2025)

  • [0] : In 2020, the 2030 iNDCs are communicated or individually updated (para. 24)
  • [1] : In 2025 the first (2030) NDCs are individually updated (‘update-first’).
  • [2] : In 2030, the second round of NDCs with time frames up to 2040 are communicated.
  • [3]: In 2035, the 2040 NDCs are individually updated; etc.

Key Issues/Risks

Locking in of low ambition due to a lack of an updating time table

It has been said that the decision requiring Parties to submit their NDCs “at least 9 to 12 months in advance of the relevant session of the [CMA] with a view to facilitating the clarity, transparency and understanding of these contributions”[para. 25] was not only to give the Secretariat time to produce a synthesis report, but also to enable Parties, in light of this synthesis report, to update these NDCs before they communicate them at the ‘relevant’ CMA session.

While that failed to take into account that Parties would find it difficult to carry out an updating in such a limited time frame, not only procedurally but also for fear of being accused to have done the original determination in bad faith, it is correct that the highest possible ambition requires not only national but also international consultation.

The level of the ‘highest possible ambition’ referred to in Art. 4.3 [4] depends not only on national circumstances but also on the wider international picture: If I do not know what my competitors are going to offer, and I am worried that I am going to be accused of (unfairly) losing competitive advantage with my offer, then the natural thing to do is to assume no-one else offers anything and calibrate my offer accordingly low. 

Indeed, fair and equitable distributions of ambition can only be achieved through consultations, formal or informal, where everyone involved knows in advance what the others intend to do, so as to arrive at an outcome with a mutual level of confidence that each country is indeed doing its fair share with its highest level of ambition.

Plan A  does provide the ‘space’ to have these consultations, at least when it comes to the 2025 and 2035 updating: the ambition levels of the NDCs in question (2030 and 2040) will have been known for (at least) 5 years. However, what is missing is a clear signal from the process that the time has come to consider an update. Updating, if it happens, is done on an ‘individual’, that is to say, non-coordinated level. But there is a danger that in the absence of a synchronized updating cycle (time table) no significant updating will take place (as may well prove to be the case in Glasgow),  as no-one wants to stick out their neck first.

Decadal cliff-edges

The main drawback of starting the para 24 cycle in 2025 with just an update of the 2030 NDC, however, is that until the next NDC is communicated (which has to be done in Spring 2030 [5]), it is not clear what exactly the target post 2030 will be, and given the Plan A communication cycle, this sort of ignorance ‘cliff-edge’ will happen at the end of each decade.

a. Domestic considerations

Domestic stakeholders need to have a degree of certainty of what will be asked of them at least for the short term, i.e. the next few years. Being potentially in a position of not knowing for sure what will be demanded (other than that it will be more) 6 months before the demands are meant to kick in, should rightly be unacceptable.

b. Global Stocktake (GST)

Additionally, tracking the progress of achieving the PA at GSTs  through an assessment of NDCs and their progress would involve Parties submitting Information to facilitate Clarity, Transparency and Understanding (ICTU) of NDCs. Such information as agreed (Annex I of decision 4/CMA.1 ) requires inclusion of a “time frame and/or period for implementation, including start and end date, consistent with any further relevant decision adopted by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA).”  Although applicable to second and subsequent NDCs, Parties are strongly encouraged to include the agreed information when updating their NDCs in 2020.

However, there is no ex-ante information available for the GSTs prior to a cliff-edge (i.e. the 2028 and 2035 GST)  This is  likely to result in locked-in ambition particularly as the ICTU also anticipates information on the planning processes involved in arriving at the NDC. It is unlikely that if a Party, in the absence of an agreed common timeframe, undertakes  such planning processes and submits an NDC, that it will revisit the domestic NDC planning process (or it is likely to resist doing so) to revise its NDC merely to comply with a subsequently agreed timeframe. Therefore, to avoid any additional burdens of having to possibly reconfigure institutional and planning processes to facilitate ICTU and NDC formulation in the future, it would be advantageous to agree on an ambition cycle prior to the second NDC, that can be informed by the GSTs.

Additionally, the absence of a synchronised or agreed common timeframe may bring into question the value of the global stocktake if there is no information on which to base ex ante or ex post actions and therefore whether the Paris Agreement trajectory is on track. An agreed common timeframe that can be synchronised with the GST is therefore the most elegant solution to maximising the intended value of the GSTs.

c. Implications for replenishments of the multilateral climate funds

During the four-yearly replenishments, the multilateral climate funds establish their strategic programming for the subsequent four-year funding period. It is key that these priorities take into account the priorities of developing country NDCs, not least because most of them contain components that are ‘conditional’ on foreign funding. However, under Plan A, this will not be possible.

For example, the next replenishments of the Green Climate Fund, the premier multilateral climate change fund, will take place in 2023, 2027, 2031, 2035, etc. This means that half the GCF replenishments (2027, 2035) would happen under cliff-edge conditions, with insufficient if any information on NDCs for the relevant funding period. As a result, financing for NDC implementation is likely to be impacted negatively.

Plan B. ‘Communicate-first’ (2025)

  • [0] : In 2020, the 2030 iNDCs are communicated or individually updated (para. 24).
  • [1] : In 2025, the second round of NDCs with time frame up to 2040 are communicated (‘communicate-first’), and there is the opportunity for an individual update of the first round of (2030) NDCs.
  • [2] : In 2030, the 2040 NDCs are individually updated.
  • [3] : In 2035, the third NDCs with time frame up to 2050 are communicated, and there is the opportunity for an individual update of the 2040 NDCs; etc.

Key issues/risks

Plan B manages to avoid one key disadvantage of Plan A, namely the cliff-edge scenarios: there are at any one time NDCs communicated with a time frame 10 to 15 years in the future. However, in addition to the risk of locking in of low ambition due to a lack of an updating timetable already highlighted in the context of Plan A, Plan B has some additional issues not present in Plan A. 

Locking-in of low ambition due to a lack of confidence in longer-term projections

For one, not many countries, if any, have the wherewithall to make projections with a fifteen-year time horizon with sufficient confidence for them to be as ambitious as possible. Accordingly, they will reasonably be cautious in the original determination of the ambition level of their NDCs with accounting year more than 15 years in the future.

This risk could be mitigated by the fact that there are two possible points for updating — at the beginning of the NDC term [2] and mid-term [2] — but the former still involves a projection horizon of more than 10 years, which may still lead to conservative updates.

The risk of a false sense of non-urgency

Another problem, albeing related to the issues discussed above, is the fact that long time-frames are likely to lead to the misconception that there is sufficient time later to make up for inaction now: “we can overshoot now and compensate later” 

This can have disastrous consequences, particularly in the context referred to above (1.b) when, as in 2035, which is the first time we will have meaningful data after 2020 to update the next NDC ending in 2040. If we have succumbed to a lack of  urgency due to the lack of mid-term data, then there is a significant risk that we will not be able to compensate our early lack of ambitious action in the remaining 5 years.

III. The Glasgow Ambition Cycle

These currently prevailing risks to ambition under the Paris Agreement can be mitigated by adopting  a couple of simple process requests, collectively making up the ‘Glasgow Ambition Cycle’, namely that Parties:

(i) to communicate by 2025 their next NDC, ending in 2035 (‘with a time frame up to 2035’), and
(ii) in 2025 , to consider enhancing (‘updating’) the ambition of their initial 2030 NDC; and to repeat these two steps ceteris paribus every five years thereafter.

* The dotted blue line segments indicate that the NDCs in question could be communicated up to 5 years before the relevant CMA. For example, the 2035 NDC could be communicated any time between 2021 and 2025. However, communicating after 2028 has the advantage of being able to take into account the 2028 GST.
  • [0] : In 2020, the 2030 iNDCs are communicated or individually updated (para. 24).
  • [1] : By 2025, a second round of NDCs with time frame up to 2035 is communicated, and there is a request to update 2030 NDCs simultaneously in 2025 .
  • [2] : By 2030, a third round of NDCs with time frame up to 2040 is communicated, and there is a request to update 2035 NDCs simultaneously in 2030.
  • [3] : By 2035, a fourth round of NDCs with time frame up to 2045 is communicated, and there is a request to update 2040 NDCs simultaneously in 2035; etc.

Combining the advantages of Plan A and Plan B while avoiding their shortcomings

In this way, the proposed Ambition Cycle combines the advantages of Plan A and Plan B while avoiding their shortcomings, and provides a number of additional workable elements to the Paris Ambition Mechanism:

  • It ensures that after 2030, all Parties have NDCs that end simultaneously, namely in 2035, 2040, 2045, and so forth, which does help in aggregating and synthesizing outcomes.
  • It ensures that from 2025, all Parties will always have two NDCs communicated, providing sort-term certainty for the next five years, and a longer-term vision (for the subsequent five years).
  • It does not require long-term (see ‘Key Issues/Risks Plan A) projections for the determination of NDC (while not precluding them either), and any final updating of an NDC involves only short-term (5 year projections).
  • It provides the enabling framework through a synchronized ambition updating time table for Parties to revisit together the ambition of NDCs communicated five years earlier in light of changing circumstances to be able to enhance their ambition in an equitable and fair manner.

Other key advantages

Compatibility and inclusiveness

Although our detailed discussion has been focussed on the situation addressed in paragraph 24, often referred to as the ‘10-year Option’ and how the proposed Ambition Cycle can be used to resolve the main problems inherent in that Option, it is important to highlight that the proposed Glasgow Ambition Cycle is perfectly compatible with the situation addressed in paragraph 23, that is to say with the ‘5-year’ and ‘5+5-year’ Options.

Creating space for equity

Some may be worried that by introducing synchronised updating of NDC ambition, particularly following GSTs that are highly likely to reveal significant global ambition gaps, will lead to countries being pressured into taking on disproportionate ambition increases. It is indeed crucial, that the envisaged periodic updates be seen to be fair, if they are to happen at all, and a key advantage of the Ambition Cycle is that it provides the space for this to happen. Take the situation illustrated in Figure 4.

[1] The 2035 NDCs are communicated by 2025
[2] In 2028, there is the Global Stocktake, informing the NDCs communicated in 2030 (Art. 4.9)
[3] In 2030, Parties are scheduled to update their 2035 NDC, if possible.

In order to facilitate a fair distribution of (updated) ambitions, Parties need prior information on what they are all proposing to do, as well as time to consider the fairness of these proposals

Under the Ambition Cycle, everyone will know in 2026 what Parties have communicated they will contribute by 2035. This leaves 5 years for them to arrive at a fair sharing of 2035 updates in 2030, in light of the information provided by the 2028 GST and the potential change in national circumstances since 2025. Without this ‘equity space’ there is a very little chance of an equitable ambition sharing in the 2030 communications.

Facilitating the predictability of financial needs

Figure 5 illustrates how the Ambition Cycle incorporates the replenishments cycles of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the Green Climate Fund (GCF), with the year of the replenishment and the relevant 4-year funding periods, as well as the end year of the relevant NDCs, either initially communicated or updated, following the Ambition Cycle. The figure shows that information on financial needs provided in the NDCs covers all replenishment periods and is never more than 5 years old.  Under the Ambition Cycle, financing needs for countries with conditional NDCs can therefore properly be taken into account in the strategic programming of the GCF/GEF.

At COP 24 in Katowice, the Standing Committee on Finance was requested “to prepare every four years a report on the determination of the needs of developing country Parties related to implementing the Convention and the Paris Agreement, for consideration by [COP 26] (November 2020)”.[Decision 4/CP.24, paragraph 13] While it is not quite clear how the postponement of COP 26 to November 2021 will affect the start of these reports, their periodicity is essentially that of the GCF funding periods as depicted in Figure 5, which means that the above argument applies ceteris paribus to these reports.

Article 6

It will not be surprising that the issue discussed here has a bearing on the Article 6 negotiations. In that context, we would like to highlight that the Ambition Cycle addresses the following two Art. 6 issues:

  • Parties report every two years on progress towards implementing their NDCs as well as on how their emission balances were adjusted for ITMOs transferred/used. However, only after the end of an NDC timeframe is it possible to assess whether the NDC was achieved, including with respect to Art. 6 engagement. From an Art. 6 perspective, it is important that NDC timeframes are the same for buyers and sellers in order to be able to avoid uncertainty as to whether double counting is actually avoided.
  • It is important for host-countries to understand with reasonable certainty where they stands with respect to (i) generating Art. 6 credits and transferring out ITMOs, in particular to avoid transferring the ‘low-hanging fruit’ mitigation outcomes, as well as (ii) financial needs for conditional activities. Regular, five-yearly updates of NDCs can provide the required information.

[1] Source: Climate Watch. 2018. World Resources Institute. Only ten countries have a time frame up to 2025: Ecuador, Micronesia, Gabon, Palau, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Timor-Leste, Tuvalu, United States of America, and Uruguay.

[2] See also ‘Complete the Ambition Mechanism’.

[3] By ‘individual updating’ we mean updating in the absence of a common synchronised updating time table.

[4] Art. 4.3. Each Party’s successive nationally determined contribution will represent a progression beyond the Party’s then current nationally determined contribution and reflect its highest possible ambition, reflecting its common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances.

[5] 25. Decides that Parties shall submit to the secretariat their nationally determined contributions referred to in Article 4 of the Agreement at least 9 to 12 months in advance of the relevant session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement with a view to facilitating the clarity, transparency and understanding of these contributions, including through a synthesis report prepared by the secretariat;[Decision 1/CP.21].


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Understanding Art. 6.8 ‘non-market collaboration’

Anyone following the UN climate negotiations in recent years will be aware of the problem that is Article 6, one of the two remaining issues of operationalization of the Paris Agreement (PA) that have so far eluded a solution.[i] The Article deals with ‘voluntary cooperation’ between Parties of the PA in implementing their targets (‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ NDCs). While Art. 6.2 considers the international transfer of mitigation outcomes, and Art. 6.4 establishes a mechanism whereby emission reductions generated in a ‘host’ Party can be transferred for use by another Party to fulfil its NDC, Art. 6.8 introduces the general idea of ‘non-market’ collaborative approaches to assist Parties in implementing their NDCs. All of these require a considerable amount of clarification to be operationalized, a process which it is hoped will conclude in COP.26, whenever that will be.

Conceptually, Art. 6.8 was from the outset a bit of a cuckoo’s egg: it was originally not part of the negotiations that led to Art. 6 and was added mainly due to the insistence of a few Parties hostile to markets on anti-capitalist grounds.

Moreover, it was from the beginning by far the least well understood, and indeed talked about, of the collaborative approaches introduced in Art. 6.

For example, in the context of the events held annually under the auspices of the ecbi Fellowship Programme, the topic of non-market approaches made its first appearance only in 2018. As documented in the 2018 Oxford Seminar Report it was given a separate slot for discussion, kicked off with a presentation by a AOSIS lead negotiator. Both the presenter and the European respondent admitted that ‘non-market approaches’ are not understood well. Indeed, during the Fellows Colloquium that preceded the Seminar, no one was able to give a concrete example of such approaches. All that was clear is that they were not meant to involve the sale of emission reductions (‘mitigation outcomes’).

At the time, I had just come across the Indian UJALA programme which, as mentioned in the Report, was “designed to lower the price of LED lighting and make it desirable for consumers”. Having published a blog post on the need to harness social marketing techniques,[ii] which has since been taken up here in Oxford by the ‘COOL4climate’ initiative, I stressed that aspect of the programme. However, over the next twelve months, I realized that bulk purchasing, as practised under UJALA (see below) could be a type of non-market collaboration as envisaged under Art. 6.8.[iii]

UJALA – Affordable LEDs for All

Unat Jyoti[iv] by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) is a government LED lightbulb distribution scheme driving the transition to low-carbon LED lighting in India. Since its launch in 2015, UJALA has emerged as the world’s largest unsubsidized LED bulb programme for households. To date, the National UJALA Dashboard lists the fact that more than 360 million LED bulbs have been purchased by Indian households, with estimated savings of more than 47 TWh. These savings are equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of Portugal, and represent 38 Mt CO2 annually, making it a striking story of developing country technology transition.

http://ujala.gov.in/, accessed 13 May 2020

In January 2014, Energy Efficiency Services Ltd. (EESL), the UJALA operator, floated the first open tender for the procurement of 750,000 LED bulbs for the Indian State of Puducherry. The procurement was done through reverse auctioning where, in its simplest form, vendors offer to sell the quantity sought at a certain unit price, and the buyer purchases from the vendor bidding the lowest price, which is known as the price ‘discovered’ by the auction. The price thus discovered in the initial bulk procurement was INR 310 (USD 4.08) per bulb, just over half of the open market price of INR 595.

The expansion of the UJALA scheme across India meant that the procurement quantity was increased over time (see Figure 1) with the prices discovered decreasing continually, to INR 39.9 in August 2019, (87% lower than in January 2014). It is noteworthy that the market price also declined by 82% to INR110 over that period, mirroring in part a decline in the average global retail price of about 70%.[v]

Data courtesy of EESL.

The data reflected in Figure 1 imply a total procurement cost incurred by EESL between January 2014 and August 2019 of just under USD 260 million (see Table 1). This is not an insignificant amount to invest, which is probably why EESL arranged loans and guarantees from a number of multilateral donors, including most recently, an agreement with the World Bank for 2019-22 (USD 220m loan, USD 80m guarantee).

* USD 1 = INR 76 ; ** remainder @ USD 0.53.

Given the figure for the number of bulbs distributed to date (see above), clearly all the bulbs procured by August 19 have been sold. Unfortunately, the Figure 1 data cannot be used to estimate the total EESL sales revenue without some additional assumptions, in particular regarding how many bulbs were sold at which of the listed EESL sales prices. Table 1 reflects scenarios in which a certain percentage of the bulbs acquired at an auction is sold on the spot at the sales price listed on that date, and the rest at the lowest (August 19) price of USD 0.53. It shows a considerable range of outcomes from 46% profit if all had been sold on the spot, to a 30% loss if all had been sold at the August 19 price, with a break-even point of 40% spot sales. Given that the prices did not fluctuate significantly after December 16, it can safely be assumed that the sale of the bulbs procured after that date yielded a healthy surplus of an estimated USD 65m (78%).

It is worth mentioning that annual sales of LED bulbs grew by more than 130 times to over 650 million bulbs between 2014 and 2018. Initially LED bulbs were mostly displacing CFL bulbs (Figure 2[vi]), but since 2018 their sales have overtaken those of incandescent bulbs in absolute terms. The question of how the UJALA bulk procurement, the global and domestic market prices, and the growth in annual sales are related is not is not trivial, but is beyond the scope of this post. What is clear is that there has been a technology transition in the Indian domestic lighting sector.[vii]

Bulk Purchasing as Art. 6.8 TT collaboration

Technology transfer, particularly as envisaged under the Paris Agreement, is, as The Four Aces song goes, “a many splendored thing!” The term ‘technology’ itself is, according to the ecbi Pocket Guide to Technology, used to encompass what is referred to as ‘hardware’ (physical tools), ‘software’ (knowledge and skills required to use the technology), and ‘orgware’ (institutions, policies, rules, and legislation). According to the ecbi Guide: “Countries rely on different modes of technology transfer, depending on their stage of industrial development. UNCTAD identifies three stages of industrial development in the context of technology transfer:

  • Initiation, when technologies are acquired from other countries through the acquisition of machinery and equipment and reverse engineering. The situation in least developed countries (LDCs) in particular, with many other developing countries, corresponds with this phase.
  • Internalisation, when local firms can learn through imitation under a flexible Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) regime. (IPRs refer to the legal protection of inventions or creations used in commerce through patents, copyright, and trademarks, which enable people or companies to earn financial benefit from what they invent or create).
  • Generation, when local firms carry out their own R&D and generate IPRs.” [page 4]

It thus stands to reason that bulk procurement, as international non-market collaboration, would be specially suited to the technology transfer needs of LDCs, particularly if combined with the sort of financial support (loans and guarantees) given to the UJALA programme by multilateral funds and donor agencies. But why bring in Art. 6.8?

I have been told by a friend of mine that one of the reasons why non-market approaches to international collaboration have been somewhat marginalized is that: “industrialized countries wanting to engage in markets do not like it and see it as an attempt to set up yet another climate finance mechanism, to which they would have to contribute.” This attitude could explain the prevailing lack of concrete examples. I hope that the idea mooted here demonstrates, for one, that it is possible to engage in economically motivated international collaborations that do not involve emission trading or simple monetary transfers.

Having said this, such collaborations do not rely on Art. 6.8, but the work programme that was established in Paris with the objective to consider “how to facilitate the implementation and coordination of non-market approaches” could be used to identify how such bulk procurements could be most effectively applied in the process of transferring technologies to countries like LDCs that are in the technology transfer ‘initiation stage’.

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to Mr Saurabh Kumar and Mr Ashish Malviya from EESL for the permission to use the UJALA marketing poster and for the data graphically represented in Figure 2, and to Axel Michaelowa and Radhika Khosla for the feed-back provided.


[i] The other being, of course, Common Time Frames, as dealt with in an earlier post: A “Glasgow Ambition Cycle”?.

[ii]We need Geo-engineering . . . of Consumer Aspirations!

[iii] “On Article 6.8, Müller said … smaller and poorer countries could use it to ‘bulk purchase’ energy efficient technology through a joint call for tender, like India had bulk purchased 700 million energy efficient LED bulbs to drive down their price under the Ujala programme.”[2019 Oxford Seminar]

[iv] ‘Progressive light’.

[v] See, for example, ‘Global LED Lighting Products Price Trend’, LEDinside.org, 16 August 2018.

[vi] Data Source: Kamat, Khosla, and Narayanamurtia (2020).

[vii] In total, 1.5 billion bulbs were sold in that period, just over a fifth of which through the UJALA programme.



Article 6.8 of the Paris Agreement