A gap persists between the emissions reductions pledged by countries under the Paris Agreement and those resulting from their domestic policies. We argue that this gap in fact contains two parts: one in the policies that countries adopt, and the other in the outcomes that those policies achieve.
Data availability
Data for Figs. 2 and 3 are available in the Supplementary Data.
References
IPCC Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change (eds Shukla, P. R. et al.) (Univ. Cambridge, 2022).
UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2022 (UNEP, 2022).
Climate Action Tracker (Climate Analytics, New Climate Institute, accessed 1 June 2023); www.climateactiontracker.org
Victor, D. G., Lumkowsky, M. & Dannenberg, A. Nat. Clim. Change 12, 793–800 (2022).
Bernauer, T. Annu. Rev. Polit. Sci. 16, 421–448 (2013).
Rogelj, J. et al. Science 380, 1014–1016 (2023).
Ciplet, D., Roberts, J. T. & Khan, M. R. Power in a Warming World: The New Global Politics of Climate Change and the Remaking of Environmental Inequality (MIT Press, 2015).
Meckling, J. et al. Science 378, 31–33 (2022).
Skocpol, T. Naming the Problem: What It Will Take to Counter Extremism and Engage Americans in the Fight against Global Warming (Columbia School of Journalism, Scholars Strategy Network, 2013).
Schmid, N., Sewerin, S. & Schmidt, T. S. Policy Stud. J. 48, 4 (2019).
Stokes, L. C. Short Circuiting Policy: Interest Groups and the Battle Over Clean Energy and Climate Policy in the American States (Oxford Univ. Press, 2020).
Meckling, J. & Nahm, J. Governance 31, 741–757 (2018).
Rennkamp, B. Clim. Policy 19, 756–770 (2019).
Senshaw, D. A. & Kim, J. W. Energy Policy 116, 433–443 (2018).
Hoppmann, J. et al. Res. Policy 42, 989–1003 (2013).
Peñasco, C., Anadón, L. D. & Verdolini, E. Nat. Clim. Change 11, 257–265 (2021).
Burck, J. et al. CCPI Results (Climate Action Network International, Germanwatch, NewClimate Institute, 2023).
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge funding from the Swiss Network for International Studies. J.M. acknowledges funding from the National Science Foundation (grant no. 2224086). T.S.S. acknowledges funding from the Swiss National Science Foundation. T.F. acknowledges financial support from the Link Energy Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Conceptualization: J.M. and T.F.; formal analysis: T.F.; visualization: T.F. and A.S.; writing (original draft): T.F., J.M. and A.S.; writing (reviewing and editing): T.F., J.M., A.S., T.S., F.E., N.S. and C.B.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Data
Data for Figs. 2 and 3.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Fransen, T., Meckling, J., Stünzi, A. et al. Taking stock of the implementation gap in climate policy. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 752–755 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01755-9
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01755-9
- Springer Nature Limited
This article is cited by
-
The role of the IPCC in assessing actionable evidence for climate policymaking
npj Climate Action (2024)
-
Realizing the full potential of behavioural science for climate change mitigation
Nature Climate Change (2024)
-
Supporting the Paris Agreement through international cooperation: potential contributions, institutional robustness, and progress of Glasgow climate initiatives
npj Climate Action (2024)
-
Industrial policy, populism and the political economy of climate action
Nature Climate Change (2024)
-
Global stocktake and beyond
Nature Climate Change (2023)