Abstract

The Working Group III contribution to the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, which analyzes the future emission scenarios and relevant options for mitigating climate change, strongly reaffirms the need to implement additional measures to reduce carbon emissions. Once again, the report states that mitigation policies currently in place or planned are insufficient to keep the global mean surface increase below the 2°C threshold. The 2015 UN Climate Change Conference in Paris will thus represent a milestone in deciding how ambitious countries will be in reducing emissions in the coming decades. In this process, a key role will be certainly played by China and the United States, which together account for almost 40% of global emissions. Crucially, these two actors are not part of the Kyoto Protocol, although in recent years, with a very different approach, both countries have undertaken their own path towards emission reductions. Against this background, looking at their domestic efforts could provide some interesting insights into what might be their position in Paris next year.