City climate ambition could reduce the gap between national commitments and a 1.5oC pathway globally by up to 40%, new GCoM research suggests

Updated projections from the Global Covenant of Mayors (GCoM) in partnership with Arup indicate that - based on current near-term targets and current nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - cities committed to climate action could achieve up to 40% of the global emissions reduction gap between NDCs and a 1.5°C pathway by 2030. This potential - based on reported city targets and current NDCs - reinforces the national and subnational opportunity promoted by the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP).

The findings also suggest that delaying city action reduces its potential impact.In a modelled scenario that retains current NDCs but delays near-term city targets by five years later than currently expected, cities committed to climate action could achieve up to 29% of the global emissions reduction gap between NDCs and a 1.5°C pathway by 2030.

Figure 1. Potential greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reduction in cities globally as a proportion of total GHG emissions

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The model utilized for this analysis is an adaptation of the GCoM aggregation impact methodology, which leverages reported signatory data to estimate the overall emissions footprint and projected emissions reduction trends from 2010 to 2050. A machine learning approach was used to fill gaps in the input dataset based on multivariate descriptions of each city.

Please note: the uncertainty associated with this analysis requires further specification and investigation. A more detailed methodological note will accompany this news item in due course.