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Emission Reduction Targets, Energy Security and Paris Agreement Goals: A Sustainable Solution Or An Illusory Promise?

KEY WORDS: Paris Agreement;  emission reduction targets;  energy security; power systems; dispatchability;  predictability; illusory promise; national plans; equity; sustainable development; SDG13; multi-objective analysis

1.0    Commitments by governments for reducing emissions in their NDCs, to date, fall far short of what is required. 

2.0    A national plan should not only represent a power system that has the optimum balance between renewables and other climate action option(s) to reduce emissions sustainably and equitably; but also the plan should lead to a commitment that can be implemented. 

3.0    Without a national plan on how to implement emission targets into climate action to achieve Paris goals and its binding obligations, there is a risk that the targets pledged could prove to be an “illusory promise” i.e., a promise made which is uncertain, indefinite, vague or impossible to fulfil.

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