US, Germany to unveil long-term emission reduction strategies

The United States (U.S) and Germany will today Thursday December 8, 2016 present long-term emission reduction strategies which were submitted to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat during the Climate Change talks (COP22) held recently in Marrakech, Morocco.

The presentation of the long-term emission strategies will take place during a webinar organised by the UNFCCC secretariat in Berlin.

To meet the central goal of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, which is to limit global warming to well below 2°C and as close to 1.5°C as possible, as well as to achieve climate neutrality in the second half of this century, long-term climate planning is required. Next to the submission of countries’ climate action plans (“Nationally Determined Contributions” or “NDCs”), the Paris Agreement also calls for the submission of long-term low emission development strategies.

These long-term climate action strategies detail emission reductions up to 2050 – and need to form a mutually supportive interrelationship with the ever more ambitious shorter-term climate actions as determined in countries’ NDCs.

More than 195 nations have signed the Paris Agreement adopted in December 2015 in Paris, France aimed towards reducing the global temperature to well below 2°C. Already, more than 114 nations have ratified the Agreement which entered into force on November 4, 2016.