December’s UN climate talks held in Madrid were aptly titled ‘Time for Action’. While little progress was made at the conference in establishing an international framework that would help to instigate this, there is still much scope for action in 2020. The need for this has become all too apparent as the impacts of climate change are increasingly seen around the world.

One of the key areas where progress can be made in 2020 is in increasing the ambition of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), these being governments’ plans to take action in response to climate change. To date, 184 countries have submitted NDCs, yet the commitments that have been made fall far short of what is needed to avert catastrophic climate change.

In 2020, however, many countries will be revising their NDCs, presenting an important opportunity to shift momentum; to date 79 countries have announced that they will be enhancing the ambition of their NDCs.

The forest sector is one area where more ambitious targets are likely to be set, and indeed, at the Climate Action Summit in September 2019, more than 20 countries made new commitments for the conservation, reforestation and restoration of their forests.

This will be essential. As is well documented, reducing deforestation is critical to reducing carbon emissions, while healthy and diverse forests are vital for adapting and increasing resilience to climate change.

However, while it is important that ambitious targets are set, this is relatively easy; the bigger challenge lies in ensuring that these are achievable.

This is all too apparent from experience thus far. In 2014, the New York Declaration on Forests set the goal to halve forest loss by 2020, and to end it by 2030. In addition, it included the goal to restore 150 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2020, and a further 200 million hectares by 2030.

The declaration has been endorsed by over 50 countries, as well as business and civil society organizations, yet the 2020 goals are far from being reached – in the six years since the declaration was launched, it has been found that forest loss increased rather than declined, and only about 27 million hectares of land have been restored.

What then is needed to ensure that the commitments being made by governments in their NDCs will actually be met? Three big changes are required.

Firstly, a shift in perspective is needed in many countries to a more forest-sensitive approach to development, one that gives adequate recognition to the full range of values provided by forests, rather than primarily focusing on their role as a global carbon sink. These include their importance for local and national economies, for livelihoods and the well-being of forest-dependent peoples, and for biodiversity and the regulation of local climate and water systems.

The focus on nature-based solutions at the international level offers potential to support this shift. However, it is critical that these are not seen as ‘niche’ approaches, and that countries identify what nature-based solutions mean for them, and how forests and tree-rich landscapes can best be integrated into their development strategies.

Fundamental to achieving this will be further improvements in governance, and this is the second change that is required. Legal and institutional reforms are needed in many countries as well as significant investments in human and technical resources. This will enable processes to be strengthened, or put in place, so that equitable strategies can be developed and implemented – strategies that reflect a balance of the needs and priorities of the full range of stakeholders, including local and global, rural and urban, women and men, young and old.

Financing will of course be critical for this, and the least developed countries in particular will be hindered in the actions they can take without additional finance. This is the third area of change that is needed, and it is to be hoped that the international community will make better progress on this in 2020. Forest and land-use options are often described as a cost-effective means of tackling climate change, as is noted in the Santiago Call for Action on Forests for example.

This is not to say that these will be easy or cheap – as Chatham House has documented, experience of forest governance reform has shown that it takes significant funding and time to bring about deep-rooted change. However, the huge potential benefits that can result, for the citizens of forest-rich countries as well as for the planet, mean that forests and sustainable land-use are a good investment.

The European Union has reached agreement on its 2030 climate and energy package in preparation for the next major international climate summit in Paris in December 2015. In the agreement member states have signed up to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 40% by 2030 – compared to 1990 levels. Currently emissions are approximately 20% below 1990 levels and so the 2030 target represents a continuation of current decarbonization trends, but it is below the rate of reductions required to meet the longer term objective of cutting emission by 80-95% by 2050.

However, the overall 40% reduction will still drive structural changes in Europe’s economy and the energy sector. This could and should be seen as an opportunity for the EU to become a world leader in the innovation of both the new technologies and systems, such as electricity storage, dynamic demand responses and the deployment of electric vehicles, all of which are experiencing a rapid increase in the size of their global markets.

But there are some concerns. The climate and energy package has put forward a collective target to double the current level of renewables so that it will provide at least 27% of energy by 2030. However, the target is binding on the EU as a whole but not on individual member states, which creates uncertainty and is further complicated by a lack of clarity on the enforcement mechanism, which remains vague. To avoid loss of investor and industrial confidence a transparent process needs to be rapidly developed that ensures compliance. 

The EU has also failed to give energy efficiency the priority it deserves, downgrading it to an indicative target (i.e. one that is aspirational only) of a 27% reduction in energy use from business as usual. However, this is equivalent to, at most, a 19% reduction from Europe's pre-recession trajectory. The weaker energy efficiency and renewable energy elements of the package reflects the resistance of a relatively small number of countries to further EU-wide legal commitments, either because they prefer market inducement or due to their reluctance to reform their energy sectors. The package also makes clear that the a reformed Emissions Trading Scheme will be the main instrument to achieve the GHG reduction target and proposes to accelerate the reduction of the cap on maximum permitted emissions. However, this would only kick in after 2021, meaning the scheme will remain relatively ineffective for at least another five years. 

The crisis in Ukraine and the potential implications for security of supply once again highlights the importance of both domestic energy production and common European approaches to energy suppliers. Every 1% of energy saved across the EU reduces gas imports by 2.6%, and a stronger target would do more to reduce dependence on Russian gas imports. The EU’s failure to adopt a more far reaching and binding target on energy efficiency is a missed opportunity given that it is one  of the only approaches that delivers on the three pillars on energy policy, namely environmental protection, competitiveness and security of supply, simultaneously.

It is important to note the progress that the EU has made in both meeting its climate targets over the last decade and the impact that this has had on its other energy policy objectives. Currently, the EU’s 2020 target for reducing GHG emissions by 20% has or is very close to being met, in part due to the economic downturn, but also due to efficiency, renewable energy and changing industrial patterns and technologies. Furthermore, the use of renewable energy is now estimated to save around €30 billion per year in imported energy, improving balance of payments and improving security of supply. Likewise improvements in energy efficiency have been shown since the turn of the century to have contributed to a 1% annual reduction in energy consumption in the EU.

But the EU is not alone in preparing national carbon reduction targets for the UNFCCC conference in Paris 2015. Both China and the US, the world’s first and second largest emitters, are preparing their own emission reduction plans. China announced in September that it would put forward a new target for the peaking of its carbon dioxide emissions as early as possible. It is suggested that this might be as early as in 2025, with the potential for peak coal use coming even earlier in 2020. The US has proposed to set limits on the emissions from new coal-fired power stations and a 30% reduction in US power sector emissions by 2030 (relative to their 2005 baseline), and President Obama is expected to go further with new climate measures next year.

In the year ahead all countries that are party to the UNFCCC are expected to put on the table their national carbon abatement plans for 2030.  Some will be conditional upon further international assistance and commitments. The package agreed by Europe has scope to respond to increased efforts by other countries. This could include increasing the EU’s own domestic target (currently framed as ‘at least 40%’) or through international offsets and climate finance. How the EU responds to other countries efforts will be a test of its global leadership on climate issues.

To comment on this article, please contact Chatham House Feedback 

December’s UN climate talks held in Madrid were aptly titled ‘Time for Action’. While little progress was made at the conference in establishing an international framework that would help to instigate this, there is still much scope for action in 2020. The need for this has become all too apparent as the impacts of climate change are increasingly seen around the world.

One of the key areas where progress can be made in 2020 is in increasing the ambition of nationally determined contributions (NDCs), these being governments’ plans to take action in response to climate change. To date, 184 countries have submitted NDCs, yet the commitments that have been made fall far short of what is needed to avert catastrophic climate change.

In 2020, however, many countries will be revising their NDCs, presenting an important opportunity to shift momentum; to date 79 countries have announced that they will be enhancing the ambition of their NDCs.

The forest sector is one area where more ambitious targets are likely to be set, and indeed, at the Climate Action Summit in September 2019, more than 20 countries made new commitments for the conservation, reforestation and restoration of their forests.

This will be essential. As is well documented, reducing deforestation is critical to reducing carbon emissions, while healthy and diverse forests are vital for adapting and increasing resilience to climate change.

However, while it is important that ambitious targets are set, this is relatively easy; the bigger challenge lies in ensuring that these are achievable.

This is all too apparent from experience thus far. In 2014, the New York Declaration on Forests set the goal to halve forest loss by 2020, and to end it by 2030. In addition, it included the goal to restore 150 million hectares of degraded landscapes and forestlands by 2020, and a further 200 million hectares by 2030.

The declaration has been endorsed by over 50 countries, as well as business and civil society organizations, yet the 2020 goals are far from being reached – in the six years since the declaration was launched, it has been found that forest loss increased rather than declined, and only about 27 million hectares of land have been restored.

What then is needed to ensure that the commitments being made by governments in their NDCs will actually be met? Three big changes are required.

Firstly, a shift in perspective is needed in many countries to a more forest-sensitive approach to development, one that gives adequate recognition to the full range of values provided by forests, rather than primarily focusing on their role as a global carbon sink. These include their importance for local and national economies, for livelihoods and the well-being of forest-dependent peoples, and for biodiversity and the regulation of local climate and water systems.

The focus on nature-based solutions at the international level offers potential to support this shift. However, it is critical that these are not seen as ‘niche’ approaches, and that countries identify what nature-based solutions mean for them, and how forests and tree-rich landscapes can best be integrated into their development strategies.

Fundamental to achieving this will be further improvements in governance, and this is the second change that is required. Legal and institutional reforms are needed in many countries as well as significant investments in human and technical resources. This will enable processes to be strengthened, or put in place, so that equitable strategies can be developed and implemented – strategies that reflect a balance of the needs and priorities of the full range of stakeholders, including local and global, rural and urban, women and men, young and old.

Financing will of course be critical for this, and the least developed countries in particular will be hindered in the actions they can take without additional finance. This is the third area of change that is needed, and it is to be hoped that the international community will make better progress on this in 2020. Forest and land-use options are often described as a cost-effective means of tackling climate change, as is noted in the Santiago Call for Action on Forests for example.

This is not to say that these will be easy or cheap – as Chatham House has documented, experience of forest governance reform has shown that it takes significant funding and time to bring about deep-rooted change. However, the huge potential benefits that can result, for the citizens of forest-rich countries as well as for the planet, mean that forests and sustainable land-use are a good investment.