Analysing climate plans in Europe: ambition and reality
This work is part of the H2020 project: LOCALISED (Home - Localised-Project)
Climate planning has been arising since the Paris Agreement [1]. However, the last data shows that the proposed goals are far from being reached in time [2;3]. The 2021 data from the Carbon Disclosure Project [9] and Covenant of Mayors [10] show that most actions have not been implemented or have not reached their planned goals. The lack of consideration in several aspects of the planning process might cause this gap between planning and implementation [4].
Since implementing climate actions is highly dependent on the regional and local context [5; 6; 7; 8], the study aims to go deeper into understanding this planning vs implementation gap, using a representative sample of NUTS3 regions as case studies.
The main objective of this study will be to understand the different aspects and indicators that play a role in the implementation process of a climate plan and identify the most common barriers and enablers in the different regions.
The study will analyse existing climate plans in different NUTS3 regions. Then, an analysis of monitoring reports and interviews with planners of those regions will be conducted to (1) identify which actions have already been implemented; (2) which aspects were relevant in the process of implementation; (3) which indicators they considered.
Results will be analysed through a template analysis and mapped across Europe to identify relations between them and different spatial characteristics.
[1] United Nations / Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015) Adoption of the Paris Agreement, 21st Conference of the Parties, Paris: United Nations. AN OFFICIAL PUBLICATION. Bell, E., Cullen, J. and Taylor, S
[2] Arias, P.A., N. Bellouin, E. Coppola, R.G. Jones, G. Krinner, J. Marotzke, V. Naik, M.D. Palmer, G.-K. Plattner, J. Rogelj, M. Rojas, J. Sillmann, T. Storelvmo, P.W. Thorne, B. Trewin, K. Achuta Rao, B. Adhikary, R.P. Allan, K. Armour, G. Bala, R. Barimalala, S. Berger, J.G. Canadell, C. Cassou, A. Cherchi, W. Collins, W.D. Collins, S.L. Connors, S. Corti, F. Cruz, F.J. Dentener, C. Dereczynski, A. Di Luca, A. Diongue Niang, F.J. Doblas-Reyes, A. Dosio, H. Douville, F. Engelbrecht, V. Eyring, E. Fischer, P. Forster, B. Fox-Kemper, J.S. Fuglestvedt, J.C. Fyfe, N.P. Gillett, L. Goldfarb, I. Gorodetskaya, J.M. Gutierrez, R. Hamdi, E. Hawkins, H.T. Hewitt, P. Hope, A.S. Islam, C. Jones, D.S. Kaufman, R.E. Kopp, Y. Kosaka, J. Kossin, S. Krakovska, J.-Y. Lee, J. Li, T. Mauritsen, T.K. Maycock, M. Meinshausen, S.-K. Min, P.M.S. Monteiro, T. Ngo-Duc, F. Otto, I. Pinto, A. Pirani, K. Raghavan, R. Ranasinghe, A.C. Ruane, L. Ruiz, J.-B. Sallée, B.H. Samset, S. Sathyendranath, S.I. Seneviratne, A.A. Sörensson, S. Szopa, I. Takayabu, A.-M. Tréguier, B. van den Hurk, R. Vautard, K. von Schuckmann, S. Zaehle, X. Zhang, and K. Zickfeld, 2021: Technical Summary. In Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 33−144, doi:10.1017/9781009157896.002.
[3] Climate Action Tracker - Warming Projections Global Update - November 2022.
[4] IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press. In Press.
[5] IPCC, 2018: Summary for Policymakers. In: Global Warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, H.-O. Pörtner, D. Roberts, J. Skea, P.R. Shukla, A. Pirani, W. Moufouma-Okia, C. Péan, R. Pidcock, S. Connors, J.B.R. Matthews, Y. Chen, X. Zhou, M.I. Gomis, E. Lonnoy, T. Maycock, M. Tignor, and T. Waterfield (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA, pp. 3-24, doi:10.1017/9781009157940.001.
[6] Nielsen, K. S., Stern, P. C., Dietz, T., Gilligan, J. M., van Vuuren, D. P., Figueroa, M. J., Folke, C., Gwozdz, W., Ivanova, D., Reisch, L. A., Vandenbergh, M. P., Wolske, K. S., & Wood, R. (2020). Improving Climate Change Mitigation Analysis: A Framework for Examining Feasibility. One Earth, 3(3), 325–336. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.08.007
[7] Williams, P. A., Simpson, N. P., Totin, E., North, M. A., & Trisos, C. H. (2021). Feasibility assessment of climate change adaptation options across Africa: an evidence-based review. Environmental Research Letters, 16(7), 073004. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac092d
[8] Rempel, A., & Gupta, J. (2022). Equitable, effective, and feasible approaches for a prospective fossil fuel transition. WIREs Climate Change, 13(2). https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.756
[9] Carbon Disclosure Project: https://data.cdp.net/
[10] Covenant of Mayors: https://www.covenantofmayors.eu/en/
Other relevant literature:
- Reckien, D., Flacke, J., Olazabal, M., & Heidrich, O. (2015). The influence of drivers and barriers on urban adaptation and mitigation plans-an empirical analysis of European Cities. PLoS ONE, 10(8), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0135597
- Reckien, D., Salvia, M., Heidrich, O., Church, J. M., Pietrapertosa, F., De Gregorio-Hurtado, S., D’Alonzo, V., Foley, A., Simoes, S. G., Krkoška Lorencová, E., Orru, H., Orru, K., Wejs, A., Flacke, J., Olazabal, M., Geneletti, D., Feliu, E., Vasilie, S., Nador, C., … Dawson, R. (2018). How are cities planning to respond to climate change? Assessment of local climate plans from 885 cities in the EU-28. Journal of Cleaner Production, 191, 207–219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.03.220
- Horizon 2020 Online Manual: https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/docs/h2020-funding-guide/cross-cutting-issues/climate-sustainable-development_en.htm
- Eurostat – GISCO: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/gisco/geodata/reference-data/administrative-units-statistical-units/nuts
- Clean energy for all Europeans, 2019: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-strategy/clean-energy-all-europeans-package_en
- C40: https://www.c40.org/
It is fully applicable to the M-SE focus. The climate planning vs implementation gap analysis results will be mapped using appropriate software. Then, results can be compared to spatial data of the different regions and identify patterns.