PE Live: Paris climate contributions are standardising

Second round of NDCs sees greater similarity in formats, with many adopting net-zero targets

Countries’ contributions towards the Paris Agreement have become more standardised since first being proposed, making them easier to evaluate, according to panellists on a PE live debate titled Everything the World Needs to Achieve at Cop26. The Paris Agreement—reached in 2015—is a legally binding agreement to limit global warming to below 2°C this century. But although the overall agreement is binding, national contributions to it are voluntary, with the idea that each country would contribute what it could and that these contributions would then be ‘ratcheted’ over time to increase ambition to the required levels. This resulted in the so called ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs)