Dear colleagues,

Welcome to the latest newsletter of the NDC ASPECTS project. This time, we report on the first “Sectoral Conversations” the project team has conducted, we feature two blogs on takeaways from the IPCC Assessment Report 6 (AR6), and we present our recently published commentary on a decarbonization club for the global steel sector.

Enjoy the read!

The Sectoral Conversations are a central element of NDC ASPECTS to co-create robust research results together with sectoral experts and stakeholders. The Conversations are conceived as series of sector-specific, transdisciplinary, mutual learning formats that co-produce knowledge and build relationships over the project lifetime. Four parallel Sectoral Conversations will be held each year, one for each of the four sectoral systems in focus of NDC ASPECTS – energy-intensive industries, transport and mobility, buildings, and AFOLU. Reports on the first two conversations are available now.

Click here for the INDUSTRY conversation report

Click here for the BUILDINGS conversation report

Word cloud of challenges for decarbonizing energy-intensive industries based on stakeholder feedback in the first Sectoral Conversation for Industry

Structure of the first Sectoral Discussion on industry. Participants first discussed present concerns (yellow box), then future aspirations (green), inspirational practices (cyan), innovations at play (magenta), and, finally, essential features to maintain a desirable future for industry (orange).

In a blog item for the NDC ASPECTS website, IPCC contributing author Harro van Asselt shares his personal takeaways from the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report on Mitigation. Harro focuses primarily on the International Cooperation chapter but also covers messages emerging from other parts of the report. Find out why the Paris Agreement is working (to some extent), why climate litigation matters, and how trade and investment agreements may hamper climate action.

Read more

In our second IPCC-related blog, the Wuppertal Institute’s Wolfgang Obergassel takes up the four analytical frameworks of international climate cooperation that the IPCC discusses in the AR6, namely the global commons framing, ethical approaches, analysis of transitions and transformations, and the psychology and politics of changing course. The blog explains that these different framings lead to different indicators of success and how this influences the way scholars assess the Paris Agreement’s effectiveness.

Find out more

At the G7 summit in June 2022, the German government intends to establish a climate club, a partnership of the countries with the highest ambitions for climate policy worldwide. Such a club could help better coordinate and harmonise mitigation action among members and could develop into a global alliance of ambitious countries. The NDC ASPECTS team recently analysed how a steel sector decarbonization club could accelerate the industry's transformation. Read the comment in Nature Climate Change here.

The global steel decarbonization technology gap. The vast majority of green steel projects and initiatives are located in the Global North, but the bulk of future demand for green steel will come from emerging and developing economies. Figure adapted from Hermwille et al. (2022), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01383-9

NDC ASPECTS will conduct a side event called “Benchmarks and Governance for Achieving Net-Zero Globally, Sectorally and Nationally” at the oncoming UNFCCC intersessional meeting in Bonn. The event will present new research on global and sectoral mitigation benchmarks, energy and socio-economic impacts of transforming India’s energy sector, and on the potential of global governance to promote sectoral decarbonisation. The event is scheduled for Monday, 13 June 2022, 15:00—16:30 hrs, Kaminzimmer.

More information about the side events of the UNFCCC intersessional meeting