A research roadmap for quantifying non-state and subnational climate mitigation action

Non-state and subnational climate actors have become central to global climate change governance. Quantitatively assessing climate mitigation undertaken by these entities is critical to understand the credibility of this trend. In this Perspective, we make recommendations regarding five main areas of research and methodological development related to evaluating non-state and subnational climate actions: defining clear boundaries and terminology; use of common methodologies to aggregate and assess non-state and subnational contributions; systematically dealing with issues of overlap; estimating the likelihood of implementation; and addressing data gaps.

Angel Hsu, Niklas Höhne, Takeshi Kuramochi, Mark Roelfsema, Amy Weinfurter, Yihao Xie, Katharina Lütkehermöller, Sander Chan, Jan Corfee-Morlot, Philip Drost, Pedro Faria, Ann Gardiner, David J. Gordon, Thomas Hale, Nathan E Hultman, John Moorhead, Shirin Reuvers, Joana Setzer, Neelam Singh, Christopher Weber & Oscar Widerberg. (2019). Defining a Research Roadmap for Quantifying Non-State and Subnational Climate Action. Nature Climate Change, 9, pp. 11–17. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-018-0338-z