There is good news in the finding that a green pandemic recovery could shave up to 25 per cent off the emissions we would expect to see in 2030 with implementation of unconditional NDCs – bringing the world close to the 2°C pathway.
The report identifies recovery measures to deliver these cuts while supporting other environmental, social and economic goals.
These include direct support for zero-emissions technologies and infrastructure, reducing fossil fuel subsidies, and backing nature-based solutions – including large-scale landscape restoration and reforestation.

The jury is still out on whether COVID-19 rescue and recovery measures will lead to lower or higher global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the longer run (see also chapter 3).
However, this chapter illustrates that certain rescue and recovery measures can simultaneously support a rapid, employment-intensive and economically cost-effective economic recovery and a low-carbon transition.
Such measures include :
1. support to low-carbon and renewable energy, low-carbon transport, zero-energy buildings and low-carbon industry;
2. support to research and development of zero-emissions technologies;
3. fiscal reforms of fossil fuel subsidies; and
4. nature-based solutions, including large-scale landscape restoration and reforestation.

See Table 2.4. Overview of key policy measures adopted by G20 members in 2019 and 2020 that would significantly affect the achievement of NDC targets, including selected COVID-19 measures /page 18, with country reports on key policy measures

A detailed evaluation of the appropriateness of given measures in various country contexts is required to assess the scope for rolling them out across countries, as impacts vary across different political, environmental economic, business, legal, regulatory and social contexts.
Well-designed spending can also tackle other pressing problems such as air pollution, natural capital deficit, wealth and income inequality, inadequate quality of life and rural/urban disparities.
The emissions gap is unchanged compared with 2019, meaning that countries need to strengthen their NDC ambitions dramatically, specifically threefold to achieve a 2°C goal and more than fivefold to achieve the 1.5°C goal.

There are two reasons why the gap has not changed.
• First, adjustments to the NDC scenarios have been very minor: as at November 2020, none of the major emitters had submitted new or updated NDCs with stronger NDC targets for 2030.
Overall, any NDC target updates from 2019 are expected to reduce total 2030 emissions by less than 1 per cent (section 3.2.2).
• Second, no new 1.5°C, 1.8°C and 2.0°C scenarios have been added to the assessment since 2019.

Furthermore, the 2020 gap assessment is unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As noted in figure 3.1, this gap assessment is still based on scenarios that do not specifically consider the implications of COVID-19 and related rescue and recovery measures. COVID-19 will only affect the gap assessment if the NDC scenarios and/or the 1.5°C, 1.8°C and 2.0°C long-term scenarios are affected.
In turn, NDC estimates will only be affected by COVID-19 and related measures if NDCs are updated in response to the pandemic or if projections of NDC emissions from countries with intensity targets are revised.
At present, there are no studies available that quantify this, but at the global scale it is expected to be only a second-order effect.

Similarly, COVID-19 and associated rescue and recovery measures will only affect long-term pathways to keep global warming to 1.5°C or well below 2°C if they result in a structural shift of the economy. Although COVID-19 lockdown measures have resulted in a sharp temporary decline in global fossil fuel carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2020 (see chapter 2), there is currently no firm scientific evidence to confirm a structural shift of the economy towards higher or lower emissions in the long term.
The gap assessment between NDCs and least-cost pathways thus remains unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic, although current policy projections could be impacted (section 3.3)/Scenarios considered for the 2030 gap assessment

The future can still be shaped in a way that helps bridge the emissions gap, through the decisions yet to be made on the composition and implementation of the announced recovery packages and on future recovery actions (see page 51, table 4.7 LAND USE AND ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: low-carbon and high-carbon interventions.
• Total of 25 low-carbon spending measures identified as green spaces and natural infrastructure investment identified in 11 out of 50 countries as at October 2020 .

Overall, this chapter has shown that while the opening for using COVID-19 economic recovery measures to pursue decarbonization has so far largely been missed, there are many opportunities to reverse this trend. This will be critical to bridging the emissions gap by 2030.

A brief look into the chapter: Realizing lifestyle change: which mechanisms encourage low-carbon lifestyles?
The evidence presented so far shows that rising emissions are underpinned by contemporary lifestyles. A person’s choices operate within broader contexts that enable or constrain action– including physical environments, cultural conventions, social norms and financial and policy frameworks – and are inseparable from income levels and access to resources.
Even so, individuals can exercise environmental citizenship to bring about societal change through the various roles they occupy: including as consumers, members of organizations and communities, citizens participating in social movements and deliberative processes, or as owners of assets and investments (Stern 2000).
These types of personal action can influence not only the underlying social conditions that shape lifestyles, but also the actions of governments and businesses .
The interaction between structural conditions and how people live is dynamic: personal choices have consequences for the contexts within which they are made, which in turn reinforce or challenge the contribution of lifestyles to climate change (see figure 6.3) on page 71.