Staying on track: a bottom-up Paris-aligned pathway driven by COP initiatives

The announcement of voluntary climate initiatives during recent Conferences of Parties (COPs) underscores the interplay between voluntary initiatives and the outcomes of the Global Stocktake and COP decisions. Harmonising the collective stocktake efforts with initiative goals facilitates developing pathways across specific thematic areas (e.g., sectors, greenhouse gases) towards achieving the Paris Agreement goals. The effectiveness of the initiatives is assessed by calculating their potential impact on greenhouse gas emissions, assuming full implementation by the signatories. Their alignment with the Paris temperature goals is assessed against 2 °C and 1.5 °C pathways. Two scenarios, based on signatory and full global participation, are compared with current policy scenarios and pathways consistent with below 2 °C and 1.5 °C (high overshoot). If country signatories implemented initiative targets domestically, projections for 2030 to 2050 are generally more ambitious than current policies, potentially decreasing global emissions by about 11%. Comparing full global implementation to below 2 °C or 1.5 °C pathways, the results are mixed. By 2030, most initiative goals align with 2 °C, but certain thematic areas are missing. A number of initiatives demonstrate ambition beyond 1.5 °C pathways, questioning their feasibility. Achieving all global initiative targets by 2030 consistent with the below 2 °C and 1.5 °C (high overshoot) pathways requires 5–8% additional reductions. Realising the full potential of these initiatives necessitates increasing ambition for specific goals by 2030, increasing and clarifying long-term ambition, expanding thematic coverage, and requiring concrete climate action plans. Within the UNFCCC, this can be facilitated by making Global Stocktake goals more explicit, based on COP initiatives.

Roelfsema, M., Dafnomilis, I., den Elzen, M., Harmsen, M., de Boer, H-S., Doelman, J., van Vuuren, D., Staying on track: a bottom-up Paris-aligned pathway driven by COP initiatives, Energy and Climate Change, Volume 7, 2026 http://doi.org/10.1016/j.egycc.2026.100237