Specifying the Gap between Nations’ Outward-Looking and Domestic Climate Policies: A Call for Measures of Domestic Climate Policy Stringency

As nations fail to meet their climate emission mitigation goals, the ambition gap is widening between international policy (enacted by United Nations) and domestic (what propose enact). A widely held but little verified conventional wisdom exists that over-promise internationally under-deliver domestically. While data exist directly test this hypothesis, we documented constructing heuristic indexes of performance, showing tend “lead with international”. We found nations’ policies are not significant in explaining emissions, although significant. concluded beyond identifying gap, analysts must devise metrics assess across a range issue areas, as foundation any global effort manage change.