Camda Insights: Key Findings from Updated Net Zero Report and More

Camda Insights Coordinating Impact

Camda Insights supports the coordinated communication of the impact of states, regions, cities, businesses, and investors in global climate action. If you have an announcement or update you would like to share with the Camda community through this newsletter, please contact Roisin Gorman at RGorman@theclimategroup.org.

Contents: –Announcements: – Camda Website – Camda Stakeholder Consultation on Progress Tracking Metrics –Recent and Upcoming Publications: – Key findings from updated Net Zero Report by DataDriven EnviroLab and NewClimate Institute – Key findings from America’s Pledge Analysis – Tracking Progress Framework published in Climate Policy Journal – Report launch webinar: Overview of Multi-stakeholder Coalitions by Réseau Action Climat

Announcements

Camda Website

We have developed a website to showcase the work of Camda at Camda.global. It aims to give an overview of Camda’s aims and objectives while promoting the existing work of the Camda community across the three workstreams of methodology, data, and analysis. It will help external stakeholders to better understand the work we do and will act as a source for Camda members to stay up-to-date with our activities.   Your feedback on the soft-launch of this website is greatly appreciated, please use the contact form on the website to share comments.

Camda Stakeholder Consultation on Progress Tracking Metrics

Thank you to those who attended the Consultation on Progress Tracking Metrics held at the end of September. This marked the first in a series of stakeholder consultations that we expect to be completed by the end of the year. In total, 44 Camda stakeholders attended and gave their feedback on the progress metrics that have been developed by Camda members over the course of this year to track climate action commitments from individual actors (states and regions, cities, businesses, and investors) and international cooperative initiatives.    Three break out groups discussed how the progress metrics could be applied to the Global Climate Action portal based on mockups of the profile pages of cities and regions, companies and cooperative initiates. The feedback received will be used to inform the further development of the portal and identify areas of focus in future consultations. Please contact Todd Edwards if you missed this consultation and wish to join a future one.

Recent and Upcoming Publications

If you have an upcoming report, please ensure the Registry of Publications is up-to-date so that we can support the release and share key findings within the community.

Key Findings from Updated Net Zero Report by DataDriven EnviroLab and NewClimate Institute

DataDriven EnviroLab and NewClimate Institute recently launched their report “Navigating the nuances of net-zero targets”. This is the complete and slightly updated version of the Net Zero Report that was published and presented at Climate Week NYC in September. It aims to capture the landscape of net-zero targets set by cities, states and regions, and businesses, and to unravel the ambiguity, e.g. the role of offsetting, of net-zero targets to identify actors with truly ambitious targets. The report offers a set of recommendations to increase accountability and transparency around the nuances of net-zero targets. Here are the top three key findings:

Key findings

1. Net zero momentum is accelerating: The number of net-zero pledges from cities regions and companies has roughly doubled in less than a year since late 2019 As of October 2020, actors with net-zero targets (either economy- or companywide, or for a specific sector) cover at least 826 cities, 103 regions, and 1,565 companies across all continents. In total, they represent over 880 million residents, 24.9 million employees, and 10 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Net zero can be ambiguous: nuances in target implementation approaches can determine the real ambition and impact of actors’ net-zero pledges At the highest level, approaches for implementing subnational and corporate net-zero targets can be broadly categorised according to whether they target the direct reduction of emissions, claim neutralisation of emissions through offsetting, or support carbon dioxide removal. Among measures for the direct reduction of emissions, we note a particularly broad range of approaches for claiming the neutralisation of electricity-related emissions and for supporting the reduction of supply chain and out of boundary emissions. Nuances in the specific details of those implementation approaches determine whether net-zero targets really contribute to deep decarbonisation, or produce any impact at all. These significant nuances in target implementation approaches have implications for the additionality of impact, the integrity of a claimed outcome, and the extent to which the approaches actively support or hinder problem-solving efforts for the most difficult challenges of deep decarbonisation.

3. Transparency can enable accountability and positive pressure to translate net-zero targets to ambitious action Transparency on the nuances of net-zero targets not only unravels the ambiguity to understand ambition but also should be recognised as a tool in itself to increase ambition by facilitating accountability and constructive dialogues on challenges faced. Ambitious actors, critical observers, and concerned citizens and consumers should recognise that constructive transparency can be far more ambitious and solution-oriented than net-zero claims that are based upon opaque accounting approaches. Guidance and encouragement for actors to set targets should include a greater consideration of these nuances, to better enable the identification of truly ambitious actors and enhance support towards them.

Key Findings from America’s Pledge Analysis

America’s Pledge has aggregated and quantified the actions of U.S. states, cities, businesses and other bottom-up actors to drive down their greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. In September 2020, they released their fourth analysis in two parts: Delivering on America’s Pledge: Achieving Climate Progress in 2020 which assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent economic recession on the ability of states, cities, businesses and others to drive the ambitious emissions reductions required for 2030; and We Are Still In to Deliver on America’s Pledge: A Retrospective which looks back at the past three years of state, city, and business climate leadership to document emissions reduction efforts and showcase the historic progress that has kept the US on a path of climate progress. Below is a selection of key findings from this analysis. See the full list here.Throughout the past three years, states, cities, and businesses have taken unprecedented climate action that has kept the U.S. on a path of climate progress.The analysis suggests America has passed a tipping point in its energy transition and the clean energy transition cannot be halted.With nearly two-thirds of Americans believing the federal government should act on climate change, public opinion and political momentum towards a clean energy economy are at an all-time high.A massive, coordinated effort from both the federal government and states, cities, and businesses is still needed to get onto a 1.5°-aligned emissions reduction pathway.If pandemic economic recovery packages explicitly address the climate crisis and energy transition and are followed by sustained action from all actors, including the Federal Executive Branch and Congress, America could still cut emissions in half by 2030, putting the country on a path to net zero emissions.

Tracking Progress Framework Published in Climate Policy Journal

A research group of 17 co-authors from across the Camda community, led by Tom Hale, recently published a paper titled ‘Sub- and non-state climate action: a framework to assess progress, implementation and impact‘ in the Climate Policy Journal. The paper introduces a logical framework, shown below, that outlines the indicators of progress for each step towards achieving a climate action commitment based on an idea that originated in the Camda workshop at COP24 in Katowice. It aims to promote tracking beyond the potential of commitments and towards tracking results as well. The framework can be used by researchers and organisations as a template to assess the progress, implementation, and ultimately the impact of climate action by states and regions, cities, businesses, and investors. It can be tailored and applied to a wide range of climate action areas, including mitigation and adaptation. The framework provides the basis for the progress tracking metrics that Camda has been developing over the past year. View a PDF version of the paper.

The log frame model for measuring progress, implementation, and impact of climate action:

Report Launch Webinar: Overview of Multi-stakeholder Coalitions by Réseau Action Climat

Date: 16 November 2020, 16:00 – 17:30 CET Register for the webinar. The French NGO, Réseau Action Climat, is organising a webinar for the publication of its report, to present the key results and discuss them with a panel of three experts, followed by a Q&A session with participants. See the full agenda. Réseau Action Climat will publish its first report on multi-stakeholder coalitions on November 16th. Over the past decade, multi-stakeholder coalitions have become increasingly visible and active in the climate action and environmental protection spaces. Since the Paris Agreement, state and non-state actors are coordinating, among others, through these coalitions to implement the Agreement. But what is the role of these coalitions in international climate governance? What are their objectives, governance structures and their impacts? Are there potential risks, especially considering these coalitions rarely have evaluation systems?

Thank you to all organizations involved, including:, America’s Pledge, Bloomberg Philanthropies, BSR, C40, California Air Resources Board, CDP, Ceres, CIFF, ClimateNexus, ClimateWorks Foundation, Climate Bonds Initiative, Climate Strategies, Data-Driven EnviroLab, German Development Institute, European Commission, Global Covenant of Mayors, Global Climate Action Summit, Global Strategic Communications Council, Grantham Research Institute, GreenFaith, ICLEI, IDDRI, The Mission 2020 Campaign, New Climate Economy, NewClimate Institute, Regions4, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Principles for Responsible Investment, Rocky Mountain Institute, The Climate Group, The Stanley Foundation, UNEP DTU Partnership, UN Environment, United Nations Climate Change, University of Maryland, University of Oxford, We Mean Business, World Resources Institute, and WWF.

Have an announcement or update to share with the Camda community? Contact Roisín Gorman at RGorman@theclimategroup.org to submit to the Camda Insights newsletter.

The Mission 2020 Campaign – The Climate Group – ClimateWorks – United Nations Climate Change

You are receiving this email because of your relationship with Camda members and the coordinating organisations listed above. Please only share this email with trusted partners and colleagues. The information and intelligence for this briefing was collected in confidence. If you would like someone to be added to this mailing list, please email requests to RGorman@theclimategroup.org. If you would not like to receive further Camda Insights, please email ‘Camda Insights Opt-out’ to RGorman@theclimategroup.org. This update is in part thanks to ClimateWorks Foundation and various organizations listed above who provided relevant information.