Ensuring an Effective Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement

The Global Stocktake assumes a critical role within the architecture of the Paris Agreement. It is a process that establishes a feedback mechanism connecting short-term, contemporary climate action with the overall long-term targets of the Paris Agreement. The aim is to encourage governments to adopt more ambitious climate protection measures. Starting in 2023 and every five years thereafter, the GST will enable states to take stock of their joint progress towards achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. Many hope that the Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement can become a catalyst for increased mitigation ambition over time. 

The paper "Catalyzing Mitigation Ambition under the Paris Agreement: Elements for an Effective Global Stocktake" describes four governance functions for an ideal Global Stocktake: The process can contribute as a pacemaker to the Paris Agreement – by stimulating and synchronising policy processes at different levels. It serves to create critical public attention to hold Parties to account for their climate protection activities. By setting clear benchmarks for what level of ambition is required in subsequent NDC periods it can drive incentivize higher mitigation ambition. And last but not least it can reaffirm and refine the guidance and signal of the Paris Agreement. The team of authors further describe prerequisites for effective implementation of these functions. 

At the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) in Katowice, the basic modalities for the first and subsequent Global Stocktakes were adopted. The paper provides information on the process- and information-related conditions for the implementation of the four functions and assesses how these conditions are reflected in the adopted modalities.

The full article by Lukas Hermwille, Project Co-ordinator in the Global Climate Governance Research Unit in the Energy, Transport and Climate Policy Division at the Wuppertal Institute, Dr. Louise Jeffery of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Anne Siemons and Hannah Förster of the Öko-Institut has been published in the journal Climate Policy and can be downloaded from the following link.