Ukraine’s and Russia’s climate action under the Paris Agreement received the poorest rating according to new rating system launched by Climate Action Tracker (CAT) research group. They found themselves in the company of four other countries — Chile, the USA, Turkey and Saudi Arabia which their climate actions classified as ‘critically insufficient’. The climate policies of those countries would result in the 4°C+ world.
The climate action of Kazakhstan received a slightly better rating. However, it is still found to be insufficient and would lead the world to 3°C of warming. Norway, Canada, Brazil and even the EU were placed under the same category.

«It is a fact, Ukraine presented very weak NDCs under the Paris Agreement that do not take into account a huge energy efficiency capacity and renewables development potential of the country. In August 2017, new energy strategy until 2035 was adopted, setting a more tangible national emission reduction target. The Ministry of Environment expects that the strategy will provide a basis for the revision of Ukraine’s NDCs under the Paris Agreement and that such revised NDCs will be filed with the convention secretariat in 2018,’ said Iryna Stavchuk, Head of Ecodia, a Ukrainian environmental organisation.

‘The question about ‘how the climate actions under the Paris Agreement can be implemented’ still remains open, both globally and locally in many countries. The fact that Russia has found itself among the countries with ‘critically insufficient’ climate action is quite logical,’ said Olga Senova, Head of the Climate Secretariat of the Russian Social Ecological Union. ‘To quit this category, critical decisions are needed that would allow us to abandon fossil fuels as the basis of the national energy sector and exports, and to stop subsidising fossil fuels while placing priority on the development of renewables and energy efficiency. As distinct from optional and vague NDCs, such efforts would allow for keeping global warming below 2°C. There is much more work to do here.’

Elina Doszhanova, a UNDP low-carbon development expert from Kazakhstan: ‘It’s very interesting to see Kazakhstan sharing the same group with such developed nations as Norway, Canada and the EU as a whole. Kazakhstan’s climate action was rated as ‘insufficient’ due to moderate emission reduction targets, taking into account the country’s capacity to make the transition to low carbon development. This year, the state hosted EXPO-2017: the Future Energy Forum, making significant budgetary investments in the application of new technologies and raising of funds for the development of renewables in the future. It is expected that those opportunities will help Kazakhstan to achieve its nominal target of a 25% GHG emissions reduction by 2030 compared with the 1990 reference level.’

Climate Action Tracker (CAT) has updated its government climate action rating system to better reflect the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C long term warming limit. The new categories help to highlight the adequacy and fairness of government climate commitments for the Paris Agreement (full briefing).

CAT has expanded to six rating categories instead of the previous four, to properly describe the full range of action, or lack of action, by governments. ‘In our previous rating system, the vast majority of the 33 countries we rate fell into just two categories: ‘medium’ and ‘inadequate,’ which made it difficult for people to judge a government’s relative and absolute performance,’ said Bill Hare, Climate Analytics.

 

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