Interactive: Are countries on track to meet their climate goals?

COP28 will mark the first global assessment of whether countries are on track to align their domestic greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5°C (2.7°F) above preindustrial levels.

The interactive graphic below illustrates two decisions that confront investors and policymakers who aim to assess a country’s contribution to global warming and shows how the choice of inputs will shape the country’s estimated warming trajectory. First is how to allocate the remaining budget used to determine the quantity of emissions a country can still add to the atmosphere without lifting average global temperatures above 1.5°C. Second is whether to extrapolate the trajectory of a country’s future emissions from its track record of carbon emissions or to calculate the country’s future emissions based on its latest emissions targets.

Assessing countries' climate ambition

1.5°C Aligned

2°C Aligned

Misaligned

Strongly Misaligned

* excluding land use, land use change, forestry (LULULCF)

For more details on the outlined approaches, please refer to the “Assessing countries’ climate ambition: An analytical exercise” section of The MSCI Net Zero Tracker – November 2023 edition.

Emissions budget

There are a range of approaches to estimate a country’s remaining emissions budget that each represent divergent philosophical and analytical views. Below we illustrate two that have been developed by scientists, academics and standard setters. The first, which incorporates a model adopted by the Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS), a global group of central bank supervisors, considers shifts in climate policies, advances in clean-energy technologies, and changes in energy and economic systems to outline a potential pathway for achieving net-zero emissions by the year 2050 (NGFS budget). The second, one version of which has been developed by faculty at the University of Graz, aims to allocate emissions that remain for alignment with 1.5°C warming among countries based on their current and projected population and resource needs (Graz budget).

Emissions trajectory

The graphic illustrates two methods for projecting a country’s emissions trajectory. Policymakers or investors can either accept a country’s national climate target at face value and extrapolate its future emissions accordingly or extrapolate the country’s future emissions from its actual track record in emissions.

The illustration provides a perspective on what each country’s contribution to global warming would be with either the NGFS or Graz budgets, taking the country’s climate target at either face value or extrapolating from its track record in emissions.

It also invites viewers to combine the two approaches by averaging the NGFS and Graz budgets and adjusting the country’s future emissions trajectory based on the country’s record of actually reducing emissions since the Paris Agreement at the annual rate required to meet the country’s emissions target.