The Gambia

Critically Insufficient4°C+ World

NDCs with this rating fall well outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would exceed 4°C.

Highly insufficient< 4°C World

NDCs with this rating fall outside of a country’s “fair share” range and are not at all consistent with holding warming to below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach between 3°C and 4°C.

Insufficient< 3°C World

NDCs with this rating are in the least stringent part of a country’s “fair share” range and not consistent with holding warming below 2°C let alone with the Paris Agreement’s stronger 1.5°C limit. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming would reach over 2°C and up to 3°C.

2°C Compatible< 2°C World

NDCs with this rating are consistent with the 2009 Copenhagen 2°C goal and therefore fall within a country’s “fair share” range, but are not fully consistent with the Paris Agreement long term temperature goal. If all government NDCs were in this range, warming could be held below, but not well below, 2°C and still be too high to be consistent with the Paris Agreement 1.5°C limit.

1.5°C Paris Agreement Compatible< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDCs in the most stringent part of its “fair share” range: it is consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Role model<< 1.5°C World

This rating indicates that a government’s NDC is more ambitious than what is considered a “fair” contribution: it is more than consistent with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit.

Historical data

The Gambia’s historical emissions are taken from the NDC (Government of The Gambia, 2016), as it is the most recent governmental source.

The Second National Communication (Government of Gambia, 2012) and the UNFCCC GHG inventory data portal (UNFCCC, 2017) report a high level of emitted F-gases in 2000, equivalent to 17.3 MtCO2e, outweighing by more than four times the NDC projections in 2030. We therefore do not consider the historic dataset provided in the Second National Communication further. In addition, a mismatch of 4 MtCO2e exists between the data provision in the NDC and a previously submitted report on planned NAMAs in The Gambia for 2005 and 2010 (Government of The Gambia 2012). This report includes projections entirely based on US EPA data sources. Since the NDC is the most recent governmental source, we opted to use this latest data provisions.

The forestry data point for 2000 is taken from the UNFCCC GHG inventory data portal (2017).

Pledges

NDC target values are directly taken from The Gambia’s NDC.

Current policy projections

The reference level used to evaluate the current policy projection is the BAU “low” scenario from the NDC submission. This NDC reference scenario was developed based on individual baselines for each sector and assuming GDP growth rates lower than 5.5% till 2016 and 4.5% from 2017 onwards. For population projections, the UN population prospects 2012 medium fertility scenario was used. According to this, The Gambia’s emissions are projected to grow by 3% annually until 2030, whereas in their last submitted NAMA (Government of The Gambia, 2012), The Gambia’s emissions were projected to grow annually by 2% till 2030. These projections were entirely based on US EPA data provisions (US EPA, 2012). Since the NDC projections are the most recent, sector based, governmental projections for The Gambia, we base our reference projections on it.

Our current policy projection is the result of subtracting the reductions related to renewable energy deployment mentioned in the unilateral part of the NDC from the total projected “low” BAU emissions in 2030. Conditionally proposed measures have not been accounted for in the current policy projections due to remaining uncertainty about their implementation conditional on international financial support. Since the Sustainable Energy Action Plan does not provide the shares of the renewable energy capacities that are subject to international finance in 2030, we could not quantify the emissions that could be abated and assumed that the NDC abatement estimation was correct. Similarly, we did not quantify the proposed energy efficiency targets of National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (NEEAP) due to uncertainty about the action plan’s current implementation status.