Climate transparency’s unmet promises: A necessary stocktaking
- 23 apr 2025
- 1 minuten om te lezen
The launch of the Paris Agreement’s enhanced transparency framework (ETF) in 2024 has been heralded with much fanfare. At the latest meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan, slogans calling for all countries to engage in a timely manner with the ETF were plastered all over the venue.
This ETF calls on countries to report on their progress in meeting their nationally determined contributions, and is often referred to as the ‘backbone’ of the Paris Agreement [1]. In an era of voluntary climate pledges, mandatory transparency is seen as vital to revealing whether countries adhere to their commitments.
Such transparency is associated with multiple promises, notably that it will enhance accountability and mutual trust, facilitate improved domestic climate action, and help developing countries to access climate finance [2]. Strikingly, there is little empirical research on whether these promises have been realized.
Gupta A, van Asselt H, van Deursen M, Agarwal R, Biesbroek R, Weikmans R, et al. (2025) Climate transparency’s unmet promises: A necessary stocktaking. PLOS Clim 4(4): e0000613. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000613