Countries fall behind on Paris agreement pledges

Only a fraction of the countries that signed the Paris agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions have set domestic targets that match their pledged contributions, according to a study.

A total of 157 of the 197 parties to the agreement—which set a goal to limit global warming this century to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels—have submitted nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that include a target for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases from their economies.

However, only 58 of the parties to the agreement have set economy-wide targets for the emissions reductions in their domestic laws or policies, according to a report published by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy.