which will make subsequent emissions reductions harder and more costly. The UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2018 provides an overview of these issues. The long-term implications and the inadequacy of the current policies and NDCs are also apparent if viewed from a slightly broader perspective and when considering the required global emissions reductions until mid-century. A failure to reduce GHG emissions adequately in the next decade will frustrate and undermine the possibility of achieving the deep emissions reductions that are required by 2050 in order to keep emissions in line with the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.

The implications of postponing climate action are clear from the past decade of UNEP Emissions Gap Reports. The data underlying the gap assessment indicate that had serious climate action begun in 2010, the emissions reductions required per year to meet the emissions levels in 2030 consistent with the 2°C and 1.5°C scenarios would only have been 0.7 per cent and 3.3 per cent per year on average. However, since this did not happen, the required cuts in emissions are now 2.7 per cent per year from 2020 to year-2030 for the 2°C goal and 7.6 per cent per year on average for the 1.5°C goal. This means more effort will have to be put to help contain the menace,

The NDC scenarios estimate the levels of global total GHG emissions that are projected as a result of the implementation of the mitigation actions pledged by countries in their NDCs. In line with previous gap reports, two NDC scenarios are considered: the unconditional and the conditional NDC scenario. The unconditional NDC scenario assumes countries only implement the mitigation actions specified in their NDCs that have no conditions attached. Parties that do not have an NDC or solely have a conditional target in their NDC are assumed to follow their current policy scenario. The conditional NDC scenario assumes full achievement of Parties’ mitigation pledges (both the conditional and unconditional actions listed as part of the mitigation contribution in their NDCs). Parties that do not have conditional mitigation targets in their NDC follow their unconditional target.

Assuming that climate action continues consistently throughout the twenty-first century, a continuation of current policies would lead to a global mean temperature rise of 3.5°C by 2100. This corresponds roughly to a tripling of the current level of warming as assessed by the IPCC report (2018).  The current unconditional NDCs as assessed in the Emissions Gap report are consistent with limiting warming likely to 3.2°C (range 3.0–3.5°C) by the end of the century (66 per cent probability). These values are reduced by about 0.2°C if both conditional and unconditional NDCs are implemented. It is clear that neither current policies nor NDCs are adequate to limit warming to the temperature limits included in the Paris Agreement. We must therefore divest from policy silos and drive NDCs implementation in a way that lower emissions and enhance socioeconomic opportunities.

While NDCs and low emissions is primarily domiciled within environment ministries in countries, responsibility for action is shared with other productive line ministries. Primarily, ministries of agriculture, forestry, energy, planning, trade, finance among key ones. This then means, that policy implementation programmes across all these line ministries need to be synchronised to ensure they respond to stated NDC commitments. Structure of policy harmonisation taskforces that UNEP is supporting countries establish, that convene policy makers from environment and the non-environment productive line ministries for collaborative policy planning, implementation and feedback to refine implementation, is key to this end.

Complementarity in adaptation & mitigation:  After the Paris Agreement, countries were invited to submit long-term low GHG emission development strategies by 2020 and requested to submit updated or new NDCs also by 2020. Updates of NDCs in the context of the development of long-term mitigation strategies is an important means to ensure consistency between short-term mitigation policies and targets and long-term goals. The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C provides clear guidance on the economy-wide and sector transformations that are needed to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C by the end of the century. Among the recommendations are;

• Full decarbonization of the energy sector, based on renewable energy and electrification across sectors
• Decarbonization of the transport sector
• Shifts in industrial production processes towards electricity and zero carbon and substitution of carbon-intensive products.
• Decarbonization of the building sector, including electrification and greater efficiency
• Enhanced agricultural management as well as demand-side measures such as more sustainable diet plans and reduction of food wastage, this is inline with what Ecosystem Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly (EBAFOSA) is doing by promoting cassava a climate resilient plant and use of solar dryers to preserve it to curb post-harvest losses.
• Zero net deforestation and the adoption of policies to conserve and restore land carbon stocks and protect natural ecosystems. This is demonstrated by the Africa Low Emissions Development strategy (AfricaLEDs) project and the outcomes are to be integrated into the NDCs of participating member states in Africa with the best practices being adopted by other nations.

Transformations in these areas will require major shifts in investment patterns and financial flows, as well as several sectoral and economy-wide policy targets. Compared with the run-up to the Paris Agreement in 2015, when countries prepared their intended NDCs, most of the drivers of climate action have changed, with several options for ambitious climate action becoming less costly, more numerous and better understood by countries. There has been tremendous progress in three areas, first is the technological and economic developments, which have presented opportunities to decarbonize the economy, especially the energy sector, at a cost that is lower than ever, there has been wide adoption of clean energy uptake and technology. Second, the synergies between climate action and economic growth and development objectives, including options for addressing distributional impacts, are better understood. Finally, policy momentum across various levels of government, as well as a surge in climate action commitments by non-state actors, is creating opportunities for countries to enhance the ambition of their NDCs.

Going forward, climate action should not be siloed but rather any action should have both elements engaged in complementarity. A good example in Africa, is mitigation investments primarily clean energy, tagged to power value added actions in agro-value chains. By this incentivise adaptation measures such as use of EBA in food systems and create incomes to build socioeconomic resilience. This aligns with Article 7 of the Paris Agreement in parity between adaptation and mitigation.

Injection of enterprise approaches:  Aside from advancements in technology, a growing body of research has documented that ambitious climate action, economic growth and sustainable development can go hand-in-hand when well managed. Analysis by the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate estimates that ambitious climate action could generate US$26 trillion in economic benefits between now and 2030 and create 65 million jobs by 2030, while avoiding 700,000 premature deaths from air pollution. Most mitigation options if managed properly and are consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C could have strong synergies with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially those related to health, clean energy, cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, and oceans. Momentum at all levels of government and parts of the business sector increases the potential to reflect greater ambition in the NDCs. Cost-competitive technologies, potential synergies with development and economic growth, and strong action from the subnational to international levels provide a strong basis for more ambitious NDCs by 2020. 53 countries have committed or are in the process of committing to a 100 per cent renewables target. The number of countries increased from 10 countries before the 2019 Climate Action Summit. There are multiple benefits from achieving climate change goals for other SDGs, with these synergies being more pronounced than trade-offs, especially if implementation is holistic and concurrent through employing enterprise approach. Secondly, energy demand-related mitigation strategies are most consistently and strongly associated with broader sustainability benefits. In the case of energy demand, a rapid shift is required towards more energy and materially efficient services that raise or maintain living standards of the people. In all cases, advanced technologies and sustainable behaviors are essential for delivering the transformational change required.

Longevity in anything calls for injection of enterprise approaches. Actions to engage mitigation and adaptation must take an enterprise perspective. For example, in Africa, decentralisation of clean energy – a mitigation action, to powered agro-value addition, adaptation must be approached from the paradigm of enterprise-based actions. As an example, through UNEP technical backstopping, in Cameroon women cassava entrepreneurs have been linked to clean energy entrepreneurs and the result is enterprise engagements that fuelled investment in both clean energy and EBA.

Sustainable finance; Several private companies, finance institutions and major cities announced concrete steps to reduce emissions and shift investments into low-carbon technologies. Economy-wide climate action remains extremely limited in other areas, such as a complete phase-out of fossil-fuel subsidies, comprehensive and ambitious carbon pricing and making finance flows consistent with the Paris Agreement. Furthermore, no country has explicitly committed to making their finance flows consistent with the Paris Agreement, though several multilateral development banks are currently working towards aligning their financing activities with the Paris Agreement goals (World Bank 2018). The call to redirect investment to low-carbon energy systems raises a number of issues. Firstly, the high upfront capital outlay and low operating costs of renewables is a new terrain in finance where further innovation is required. High investment requirement in developing countries like in Africa is being hampered by the high perception of risk, little opportunity for patient capital, and unstable political and regulatory regimes. To this end, multilateral, regional and national development banks could play a major role in leveraging larger finance by helping to de-risk investments. However, this would need to be co-developed where country policymakers play a deeper role by creating stable policy and regulatory conditions to encourage investment.

Building from the above, to sustainably finance NDC actions that are meaningful to a majority, financing models must go beyond socially driven to investment finance. And for this, two key ingredients are; building on existing structures for pooling resources and diversifying risks e.g. cooperatives; targeting financing of enterprise actions. As an example, the Cameroon cassava farmers above were in a cooperative that had already been pooling resources. Through these pooled resources, they were able to acquire clean energy systems where they used to dry and mill their cassava and as a result, earn 150% more. These extra revenues were then ploughed back to the cooperatives to enable a sustainable financing model. NDCs finance investments should target such a systems approach.

Inclusive partnerships:  Sustainable development needs to build alliances for change, overcome vested interests, invest in new governance capacities, create visions of attractive futures, ensure justice and promote equity, and adopt a range of economic policy instruments. Transformative inclusive partnerships have three elements that can be tapped into;

• First is road maps linking means to desired ends help create clear and stable expectations for the private sector and citizens alike, and therefore serve as coordination mechanisms within government to leverage systemic changes.
• Second is the legitimacy of sustainable transformation depends on equity, justice and fairness in the distribution of costs and benefits at an individual, sectoral or regional level. Challenges such as disruptive changes in technologies, economic sectors and labor markets creates uncertainties, instabilities and losers as well as winners, who – if organized and powerful – can act as strong barriers to change. Safety nets are therefore needed to manage adverse distributional effects until the transformation towards sustainability can be achieved for all.
• Third, new constellations of actors, partnerships and opportunities for citizens, cities, businesses and science are needed to drive proactive change and overcome inertias and path dependencies in incumbent systems.

These elements of transformative actions can create a virtuous cycle: social movements depend on a widening arc of public awareness and understanding in which effective science communication can play an important role. Widespread social and moral commitment to sustainable development challenges interests vested in the unsustainable status quo. Civic engagement and popular support underpin the strong national alliances needed for sustainable development. Likeminded cooperation-oriented actors – governments, city alliances, civil society organizations, scientific institutions – can scale up coordinated action, embed joint learning processes and support vulnerable populations impacted by climate change. Africa therefore needs to involve both state and non-state actors who are critical to enable the above. And such partnerships should build on established successes and ongoing work – not re-inventing the wheel.