Ethiopia

Ethiopia provided revised historical data for 2010 in its NDC update using global warming potential values (GWPs) from the IPCC’s fifth assessment report (AR5) (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 2021). Some sectoral data was provided, but no information on the gas-by-gas breakdown. It also provided information on emissions data from livestock and managed soils, which we take to be the entirety of agriculture sector emissions.

To complete the sector information for the industry and managed soils sectors, we used the sector-by-sector emission ratios for the NDC’s 2020 BAU estimate. We use the gas-by-gas breakdown in PRIMAP for the year 2010 to estimate sectoral emissions by gas and then converted these from AR5 to AR4 values (Gütschow, J.; Günther, A.; Jeffery, L.; Gieseke, 2021).

The NDC update covers the three main gases (CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O). We added an estimate for HFCs using PRIMAP data for 2010 and scaling this estimate to our industry sector’s emissions total for 2010.

We used PRIMAP growth rates for the energy, industry, agriculture, and waste to extend the historical time series for 1990-2018 based off of the 2010 estimate provided in the NDC update.

2030 NDC target

Ethiopia provides an estimate of each sector’s mitigation contribution to meeting its unconditional and conditional target in its final NDC update submitted in July 2021 (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 2021). These estimates are given using AR5 GWP values. We exclude the contribution of LULUCF, which we assume to be CO₂ only, and then convert all other sector from AR5 to AR4 using the gas-by-gas breakdown for 2010 historic data from PRIMAP (Gütschow, J.; Günther, A.; Jeffery, L.; Gieseke, 2021).

The estimate provided in the final NDC update is for the main three gases only (CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O). Our historical and current policy projections also include HFCs, however their contribution is very small and we have not taken it into account here.

2020 target

The 2020 target consists of a list of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) (FDRE, 2010). We have not attempted to quantify this target.

The lower bound of our pre-COVID-19 current policy projection we use a combination of data sources (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 2021; IEA, 2019; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2019).

Our energy-related CO₂ emissions are based on growth rates from the Stated Policies Scenario for Ethiopia in the IEA’s Africa Energy Outlook 2019. In general, neither the IEA Africa Energy Outlook 2019 report nor its annexes specify which of the policies have been included in the stated policies scenario. We used projections from the US EPA for energy-related non-CO₂.

For the agriculture and waste sector, we also used the US EPA’s non-CO₂ emissions projection but applied these to sector totals as the contribution from CO₂ is negligible.

For industry, we used the BAU projections from the updated NDC.

We used the gas and sector ratios in the PRIMAP for 2018 emissions as needed.

The upper-bound of our pre-COVID-19 current policy projection assumes that GHG emissions will grow according to the revised business as usual (BAU) scenario projections provided in the updated NDC(Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 2021). The base year for the BAU scenario is 2010. We have harmonised the series to the last historical year (2018).

We applied a novel method to estimate the COVID-19 related dip in greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 and the deployment through to 2030. The uncertainty surrounding the severity and length of the pandemic creates a new level of uncertainty for current and future greenhouse gas emissions. We distilled the emission intensity (GHG emissions/GDP) from the pre-pandemic policy projections (see Current policy projections above). For our lower bound estimate, the GDP growth was taken from the IEA’s Africa Energy Outlook 2019 (IEA, 2019).

The updated NDC of 2021 does not provide detailed GDP data or projections; however, it did refer to an average GDP growth rate of 10% projected under the new Ten Years Development Plan (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, 2021; Planning and Development Commission, 2021). The new plan also provides GDP growth averages for five-year intervals. We applied these average growth rates to the World Bank’s estimate of Ethiopian GDP in 2019 to the upper bound estimate (World Bank, 2020). These emission intensity estimates were then applied to the most recent GDP projections from the IMF for Ethiopia that take into account the effect of the pandemic (IMF, 2021). The IMF reports GDP growth to was 6.1% in 2020 and projects 2% GDP growth in 2021. We used the GDP growth that was expected pre-pandemic to extend the projections until 2030.

The CAT uses Global Warming Potential (GWP) values from the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) for all figures and time series. Assessments completed prior to December 2018 (COP24) used GWP values from the IPCC’s Second Assessment Report (SAR).