The Paris Climate Agreement and Beyond: Linking Short-term Climate Actions to Long-term Goals

The difference between IAR and ICA is that the former aims to review progress towards the achievement of emissions reduction targets as well as the provision of support to developing countries, and the latter aims to increase the transparency of mitigation actions and their effects. [...] The report also takes up the issue of the time-scale gap between the long-term nature and the associated high degree of uncertainties of climate change, and examines the 5 The Paris Climate Agreement and Beyond: Linking Short-term Climate Actions to Long-term Goals necessity of short-term tangible benefits for policymakers to make decisions. [...] The remainder of the report is organised as follows: Chapter 2 reviews the global CO2 emissions trend and highlights the major factors of structural change in emissions based on the cases of the European Union (EU), the United States (US) and China. [...] In this regard, the next section takes a closer look at the climate/energy policies of three major economies and thus key actors in the international climate negotiation, namely the EU, the US and China, for the purpose of identifying the major driving elements of their decoupling emissions trends. [...] CO2 emissions trends in the EU, the US and China This section first reviews the recent emissions trends of the EU, the US and China, and highlights the major driving factors that contribute to their recently observed decoupling trends.2 While these factors can be diverse, the existing literature (e.g.