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Climate chronicles

Climate policy in 2023

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 5, pages 255–257 (2024)Cite this article

Subjects

In 2023, national and international climate policy advanced in many areas but also faced substantial domestic hurdles in others. Countries agreed on new global initiatives and many major emitters expanded national climate policies. However, others rolled back existing policies and continued to support fossil fuels, slowing down global progress.

Key points

  • A tug of war between negative developments in some countries and positive developments in others is insufficient. It is only with all countries moving in the same direction that climate policy will reach the pace needed to safeguard sustainable development for all.

  • Domestic developments are often contradictory, as demonstrated by the simultaneous expansion of coal and renewables in major emitters. Ensuring coherent climate policies within countries’ borders remains fundamental to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

  • New initiatives and mechanisms to support international cooperation, such as the Global Renewables and Energy Efficiency Pledge, help to advance national and global climate policy, but they will require credible national action to back them up.

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References

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  3. IPCC. Synthesis Report of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) - Summary for policymakers. https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6syr/pdf/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf (2023).

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Acknowledgements

We thank I. Dafnomilis, E. Hooijschuur, S. Woollands, A. Missirliu, J. Wong, H. Fekete, G. de Vivero, S. Lui, N. Pelekh, F. Hans, M. J. de Villafranca Casas, N. Forsell and Z. Araujo Gutiérrez for their insights into policies adopted in different countries. We also thank L. Jeffery, H. Fearnehough, C. Hareesh Kumar and L. Ock for their inputs. This work was supported by the H2020 European Institute of Innovation and Technology (grant agreement 101056873 (ELEVATE)).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Systems Analysis, Wageningen University and Research, Wageningen, Netherlands

    Leonardo Nascimento & Niklas Höhne

  2. NewClimate Institute, Cologne, Germany

    Leonardo Nascimento, Catrina Godinho, Takeshi Kuramochi, Mia Moisio & Niklas Höhne

  3. Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands

    Takeshi Kuramochi

  4. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, Netherlands

    Michel den Elzen

  5. Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Michel den Elzen

Authors
  1. Leonardo Nascimento
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  2. Catrina Godinho
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  3. Takeshi Kuramochi
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  4. Mia Moisio
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  5. Michel den Elzen
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  6. Niklas Höhne
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Leonardo Nascimento.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nascimento, L., Godinho, C., Kuramochi, T. et al. Climate policy in 2023. Nat Rev Earth Environ 5, 255–257 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00541-1

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