Nineteen out of 34 countries surveyed failed to fully meet their 2020 climate commitments set 15 years ago in Copenhagen, according to a new study led by UCL researchers. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, compared the actual net carbon emissions of more than 30 nations to their 2009 pledged emission reduction targets set during the Copenhagen Climate Summit. The paper led by researchers at UCL and Tsinghua University is the first effort to comprehensively gauge how well countries were able to meet their Nationally Determined Contribution reduction pledges from COP15. Of the 34 nations analyzed in the study, 15 successfully met their goals while 12 failed outright. The remaining seven countries fell into a category the study authors termed the "halfway group": nations that reduced the carbon emissions within their own borders but did so in part by using trade to shift emissions they would have made to other countries. Known as "carbon leakage" or "carbon transfer," this outsourcing of carbon emissions is a growing concern among environmental policy makers as countries seek to meet newer net-zero targets. To track this carbon leakage the researchers used a "consumption-based" emissions tracking method which provides a more comprehensive scheme to calculate a country's total carbon emissions. It not only accounts for the emissions originating from economic activities within the nation's territorial borders, but the carbon footprint of imported goods manufactured abroad. Lead author Professor Jing Meng (UCL Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction) said, "It's important to be able to completely track carbon emissions, even when they're offshored, enabled by consumption-based analysis. Our concern is that the countries that struggled to reach their commitment from 2009 will likely encounter even more substantial difficulties reducing emissions even further." These emissions goals were set in 2009 at the COP15... |