For COP26 credibility, Sharma needs a plan for his plan

Britain’s new COP26 President Alok Sharma has a problem over upgrading the UK’s NDC. Although that might sound like a technical issue, it’s really not; his decision on how to manage it will be a crucial factor in setting the tone ahead of this year’s critical United Nations climate summit in Glasgow.

An NDC is a Nationally Determined Contribution – the pledge that each country makes to all others in terms of tackling its own greenhouse gas emissions.

Governments first put forward NDCs in 2015, in the run-up to the United Nations climate summit in Paris. In the Paris Agreement they ‘requested’ each other to put forward enhancements, or upgrades, starting this year.

Those upgrades could include a number of elements but the key expectation is that governments will accelerate their carbon-cutting for the decade to 2030.

Currently the assembled NDCs put the world on course for something like 3 degrees Celsius of global warming – a marked contrast to their promise in Paris to ‘make efforts’ to hold it to 1.5ºC.

The case for upgrading NDCs strengthened markedly in 2018 when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said in its landmark special report that getting on track for 1.5ºC basically means halving global carbon emissions by 2030.

Although more than 100 governments have said they will put forward an enhanced NDC before the Glasgow summit, only three have actually done so. Question marks therefore hang over how many others will – and when – and how much they’re going to accelerate their carbon clampdowns.

So the issue before the UK government is: as self-proclaimed climate change leaders, how do they manage things in order to get the maximum number of other nations to take an ambitious step forward?

Timing problem

Having left the European Union, the UK must at some point submit a national NDC anyway – the bloc uses a joint one. And to burnish its leadership credentials and encourage other countries to step up on their NDCs, an obvious route is to go early and go large.

The obvious time to do this would be before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in June. There, Boris Johnson will be able to talk NDCs directly with Narendra Modi of India, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and other leaders of Commonwealth countries able to step up a little.

CHOGM is also the ideal stage on which the UK can proffer a package of measures to help the poorest nations on Earth (which includes a number of Commonwealth members) protect themselves against climate impacts and green their economies, which many will need in order to step up the pace on carbon-cutting.

But here’s the problem: the UK can’t both go early and go large.

If the UK puts forward an NDC in or before June, it would have to base the headline number on its current legally-binding target for 2030, as laid down in the fifth national carbon budget. That’s a 57% reduction from the 1990 baseline.

On paper, that’s a marked advance from the EU’s NDC, which pledges a 40% cut.

But it would be just that ­– a paper advance – because national legislation, the Climate Change Act, already commits the UK to a 57% cut. No-one, including those other governments that the UK wants to impress, would give any credit for that.

Due to a technicality of the way UK emissions are currently accounted for, the 57% figure translates into an actual emissions reduction of 61%. If the UK leaves the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) at the end of the year when the Brexit ‘transition period’ ends, the 57% figure would then automatically become 61% – more impressive-sounding, but still absolutely the same level of ambition.

Given that the transition period ends on 31 December, there may be no clarity on this until late in the year, perhaps even after COP26.

September or sooner?

The problem gets bigger.

The 57% or 61% cut by 2030 was set to be compatible with the previous 2050 target of an 80% cut in emissions, not with the current net zero target.

So, the criticism would run – the UK is pitching in a number that’s not even compatible with its own legally-binding 2050 target and calling it ‘leadership’.