According to a report titled “Residual emissions in long-term national climate strategies show limited climate ambition,” several countries worldwide do not include enough strategies to tackle residual emissions in their Net-Zero plans.
The report examined the long-term strategies of the 195 countries that consented to the Paris Agreement. The report analysed 71 strategies out of 72 submitted so far.
The authors of the report discovered that many of the strategies do not include crucial details such as an estimate of residual emissions. Out of the 71 analysed strategies, 41 of the voluntary strategies did not have an estimate regarding residual emissions in the long term.
The report also found that according to the estimated residual emissions of some wealthy nations, the countries expect to remit most of their emissions. The wealthy nations that have contributed most to global emissions mention their residual estimates at 5-15%, which implies that by 2050, they will remit emissions for most of their sectors.
Also read: Net zero plans have limited ambition on ‘residual emissions’, research says
Although wealthy countries expect to reduce their emissions to almost zero, countries like Canada and Australia have a considerably higher percentage of residual emissions. Canada’s peak emissions range between 17% and 44%, indicating that the country plans to continue emitting. Australia also has a percentage of residuals with the range of emissions being reported to be between 36-52%.
The high percentage of residuals is due to these nations’ plans to continue their reliance on fossil fuels and incorporate carbon removal strategies and technologies to compensate for the high emissions.
The plans indicate that countries like Australia and Canada intend to utilize carbon removal efforts designed to offset historical emissions and decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors so that they can continue using fossil fuels.
