Impact of scientific research on the international climate regime: The strategic niche of the Emissions Gap reports

Joseph Alcamo ^1* Anne Olhoff ² Niklas Höhne ³

• ¹ University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom
• ² United Nations Environment Programme, Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland
• ³ new climate institute, Berlin, Germany

In the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, countries agreed to a two-track approach to emissions and climate targets. For emissions they agreed to voluntary national emission reduction commitments (pledges), and for climate, to hold global temperature increases to “well below 2°C …” and pursue efforts to “limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”. But the Agreement does not address the possible disconnect between these two tracks nor answer the question: When summed together, are national commitments for reducing emissions sufficient for staying within the agreed-upon global temperature limits? In order to address this question, and fill an important niche in the climate regime, the Emissions Gap reports present an annual analysis of the discrepancy between pledges to reduce national emissions and emission pathways consistent with temperature limits. Findings from the reports have been used by countries in the international climate negotiations to justify national policies to reduce/limit emissions, by international leaders to stimulate climate policies, and in other applications. The impact of the report can be attributed to its timeliness in addressing a key international policy question, its contribution to framing the policy of “ambition-raising and stocktaking”, its impartial synthesis of results from several scientific groups, its awareness-raising value, and its production by a major international boundary organisation (UNEP), among other factors. The Emissions Gap report series shows that research findings, if strategically targeted and presented, can fill an important niche in the policy landscape and have a tangible positive influence on climate policymaking.