Implementing the Paris Agreement: A Challenge for EU Climate Policy Monitoring

As a party to the 2015 Paris Agreement, the EU has committed to limiting global warming to ‘well below’ two degrees Celsius. Achieving this ambitious target requires transformational shifts in climate governance including, crucially, policy monitoring systems. The new governance framework of the Paris Agreement and its Transparency Mechanism (Article 13) are predicated on effective climate policy monitoring. While the EU’s Monitoring Mechanism for climate policies is one of the most advanced of its kind in the world, this paper argues that it is currently insufficient to support policy trajectories in line with the aims of the Paris Agreement. To do so, the paper analyses and critically reflects on the Monitoring Mechanism’s output. It will first present quantitative analyses of what country characteristics drive projected emissions reductions, including for example the number and type of policies reported, and social, economic, and institutional determinants. Second, it will be the first to analyse Monitoring Mechanism data from 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2015 using projected emissions reductions from individual policies reported by the member states. This will allow an analysis of how ambition levels developed over time and a comparison with existing analyses of the gaps between aggregate actions and emission reduction targets. Third, it will, based on the analysis and considering innovative policies that are currently not being monitored (e.g., policies on sinks and carbon removal from the atmosphere), discuss how to improve EU reporting in order to implement the Paris Agreement. The analysis will also contribute to the debate on the Commission’s proposal on Energy Union Governance (COM(2016) 759 final), where policy reporting, monitoring and assessment feature prominently.