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Connecting the dots: mapping references to fossil fuel production in national plans under the UNFCCC for the 2023 Global Stocktake

Fossil fuel production must wind down significantly to achieve the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goals. The climate community, however, has given little attention to how countries have addressed fossil fuel production in national communications to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

This report remedies this gap by reviewing nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and long-term low-emissions development strategies (LT-LEDS) countries submitted under the UNFCCC.

Natalie Jones, Cleo Verkuijl, Miquel Muñoz Cabré, Georgia Piggot / Published on 14 June 2023
Citation

Jones, N., Verkuijl, C., Muñoz Cabré, M., & Piggot, G. (2023). Connecting the dots: Mapping references to fossil fuel production in national plans under the UNFCCC for the 2023 Global Stocktake. Stockholm Environment Institute. http://doi.org/10.51414/sei2023.040

A group of national flags fly under a blue sky

Photo: 123ArtistImages / Getty Images

The United Nations climate change process has historically avoided paying explicit attention to fossil fuel production, in part due to deliberate strategies employed by large fossil-fuel-producing states to keep this topic off the international climate agenda. Nevertheless, there is increasing consensus that meeting Paris Agreement temperature targets while avoiding an unnecessarily abrupt and disruptive transition away from fossil fuels requires governments to plan for a managed decline in fossil fuel production.

NDCs and LT-LEDS are key documents through which governments can communicate their climate change plans within the UNFCCC process, allowing states to signal their climate action intentions and priorities internationally. The analyses in this paper reveal that governments have not yet sufficiently used the potential of NDCs and LT-LEDS to communicate plans and targets supporting a transition away from fossil fuels.

This report provides the first full analysis of how countries are addressing fossil fuel production in their NDCs and LT-LEDS submitted under the Paris Agreement and the UNFCCC up to 15 March 2023. The authors conclude by detailing four ways governments can increase transparency in their fossil fuel production plans.

Browse the complete data

You can download the researchers’ full dataset on NDCs and LT-LEDS here. Updated as of March 2023.

Access the database

Related

SEI authors

Cleo Verkuijl
Cleo Verkuijl

Scientist

SEI US

Miquel Muñoz Cabré

Senior Scientist

SEI US

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