Several nations submitted their long term climate pledges to the UN on Thursday, as the pace of INDC entries increases ahead of a soft Oct. 1 deadline for the contributions to a global climate pact.
Big emitter Indonesia, along with Albania, Eritrea, Ghana, Madagascar, and Mongolia submitted their INDCs, with an entry from Ghana late Wednesday.
New submissions are expected to take INDC coverage to over 90% of global emissions by the end of this month, up from almost 70% last month.
Of the remaining big emitters, India’s submission is due by Sep. 27 and Brazil’s on Sep. 27, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said last week.
India is expected to set a 35% carbon intensity cut 2030 goal, the Business Standard has reported. Brazil has said its pledge will include a goal to eliminate illegal deforestation by 2030.
PLEDGE BREAKDOWNS
Matching headline goals in an earlier draft, Indonesia pledged to curb its emission growth to 29% below business-as-usual levels by 2030, barely extending its 26% cut 2020 goal but adding it could be deepened to a 41% cut if it gets international support.
Ghana’s pledge was also conditional, vowing a 15% cut from BAU by 2030, upping to 45% with $22.6 billion of additional support, $3.6 billion of which could come from the international carbon market.
EU neighbour Albania’s INDC pledged an 11.5% cut on 2016-2030 BAU levels and intends to sell carbon credits, though foresees this as being conditional on having effective UNFCCC accounting rules developed to ensure the environmental integrity of the mechanisms.
Mongolia pledged a 14% cut on 2030 BAU, expressing an interest in participation in crediting mechanisms. The country has already signed up to be part of Japan’s Joint Crediting Mechanism.
Heavily forested Madagascar also pledged a 14% cut on 2030 BAU in addition to an increase in GHG absorption from its land use sectors of 32% over that period. The Least Developed Country said it will contribute up to 4% of the estimated $42 billion cost.
Eritrea offered to unconditionally cut its CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, based on 2010 levels, by 23.1% by 2020, 30.2% by 2025 and 39.2% by 2030. It said with additional financial support of around $694 million, it could up those targets to 36.4% by 2020, 61.1% by 2015 and 80.6% by 2030.
Despite many nations indicating their aim to make use of markets, Thomson Reuters analysts have said the lack of buyer nations is likely to limit the prospects of a burgeoning transnational carbon market.
RUSSIA DEFIANT
Meanwhile, Russia’s top climate official rebuffed calls to up the ambition in his country’s pledge, stressing that Russia is still an economy in transition and shouldn’t be compared to the US or EU.
“It is their opinion, it does not reflect anything and is not objective,” Alexander Bedritsky told Reuters of the critics, saying Russia would stick to its current plan.
“They can say whatever they want, but our commitments are based on around 70 scenarios of how the climate system will be developing.”
Russian policy experts are mired in doubt over whether any upcoming emission curbing proposals will be adopted after its INDC suggested GHGs could be allowed to climb substantially.
For details on all the INDCs to date, check our INDC Tracker.
By Ben Garside – ben@carbon-pulse.com
