UAE

The UAE submitted an updated NDC in July 2023 after having already strengthened its NDC target in 2022. With the UAE’s emissions still set to increase by 2030, we estimate it won’t be able to meet this new NDC target, nor the former one.

The new NDC has an unconditional and economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions reduction target of 182 MtCO₂e (including emissions from land use and forestry, or LULUCF) by 2030. The CAT rates this target, excluding LULUCF, as “Almost sufficient” compared to modelled domestic pathways and “Critically insufficient” when compared to the UAE’s fair share.

In October 2021 the UAE announced its intention to reach net zero emissions as part of the UAE Net Zero 2050 strategic initiative. As of July 2023, the UAE has yet to submit a long-term strategy to the UNFCCC but it plans to submit one ahead of COP28 according its latest NDC.

The UAE submitted a stronger NDC target to the UNFCCC on 11 July 2023. While the UAE needs to put forward substantially improved climate policies to reach the NDC, it is an improvement on the former NDC in the following ways:

• It includes strengthened emissions reduction target—to limit emissions to 182 MtCO₂e by 2030 (including LULUCF), down from 208 MtCO₂e (Government of the UAE, 2023a).
• The target is now expressed as an absolute emissions limit. The previous target was a reduction below a business as usual (BAU) scenario.
• The new NDC provides sectoral targets for the electricity and water generation, industry, transport, buildings, waste and agriculture sub-sectors.
• It includes details of the policies and measures planned to achieve the sectoral targets, a step forward in transparency.

We have estimated this new unconditional target will result in an emissions level of 206 MtCO₂e by 2030 (excluding LULUCF), a 4% improvement compared to the previous target of 214 MtCO₂e (excluding LULUCF). The target covers all sectors of the economy and major greenhouse gases—CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O.

The CAT’s calculation of the UAE’s latest NDC target also includes PFCs, sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and HFCs which are not covered by the target. For this calculation, the CAT assumes that F-Gases remain constant from the last available historical data point (2022). The latest available historical data (PRIMAP) shows a significant revision of F-Gas emissions, which is why our estimation of the UAE’s NDC target including LULUCF is significantly above the stated target of 182 MtCO₂e. The UAE is currently preparing a study on these gases as part of its plan to ratify the Kigali Amendment and announced that it will include them in future NDC updates.

This new target represents a targeted decrease in emissions of 18% below 2022 levels (excl. LULUCF).

The NDC mentions many of the policies and strategies that underpin the 2030 target. This includes the UAE’s National Energy Strategy 2050, which aims for 44% of renewable and 6% of nuclear energy in installed electric capacity by 2050, while reducing final electricity demand by 42–45%.

This strategy was recently updated to remove its previous target of 12% of coal capacity by 2050, which is now replaced by an increased fossil gas capacity from 38% to 50%. This updated strategy continues to be inconsistent with the need to reach net-zero CO₂ emissions globally by 2050, due to the continued long-term reliance on fossil gas.

The UAE reserves the option to use carbon credits for emission reductions abroad under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement to offset its own domestic emissions to achieve its NDC target. Although it has not yet announced any firm details of how it will secure carbon credits towards its climate targets (either the NDC or net zero), a privately owned Emirati company called Blue Carbon has recently made headlines for its carbon credit deals. Since its inception in 2022, the company has signed MOU's with the governments of Liberia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe to acquire conservation rights for around 60 million acres of their forests, to generate carbon credits from projects avoiding deforestation, and sell them on the market (Pearce, 2023).

Details on how the government of the UAE intends to purchase credits from Blue Carbon or other similar providers to support claims to offset its own emissions are unclear. This ambiguity presents major risks that the UAE will seek to use carbon credits with questionable integrity as a smokescreen to justify continuing its trajectory of maintaining high levels of domestic emissions. The use of credits under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement should complement and not serve to distract from or displace critically needed mitigation efforts domestically.

The UAE’s new NDC shows an increase in ambition and has improved its transparency by sharing sectoral targets and more details on the measures planned to achieve them. However, the UAE’s current plans for its oil and gas industry and its power sector continue to be incompatible with its ambition to reach net zero by 2050.

* Before September 2021, all CAT ratings were based exclusively on fair share and only assessed a country’s target.

Target development timeline & previous CAT analysis

• 29.12.2020 The UAE submits an updated NDC with first economy-wide emissions reduction target for 2030

The CAT rates NDC targets against what a country should be doing within its own borders as well as what a fair contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal would be. For assessing targets against the fair share, we consider both a country’s domestic emission reductions and any emissions it supports abroad through the use of market mechanisms or other ways of support, as relevant.

The CAT rates the UAE's NDC target as "Almost sufficient" when rated against modelled domestic pathways, and "Critically insufficient" when rated against its fair share contribution. The UAE does not specify a conditional target or an international element in its NDC, so we rate the NDC target against the two rating frameworks.

CAT ratings are based on emissions excluding the LULUCF sector. To obtain the NDC emissions level excluding LULUCF, the CAT takes the UAE’s own sectoral target for LULUCF, presented in its latest NDC.

For more details, please see the Assumptions section.

The CAT rates the UAE’s latest 2023 NDC target to reduce emissions as “Almost sufficient” when compared with modelled domestic emissions pathways – up from “Insufficient” under its previous, 2022 NDC. The “Almost sufficient” rating indicates that the UAE’s NDC target in 2030 is not yet consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C but could be, with moderate improvements. If all countries were to follow the UAE’s approach, warming could be held below—but not well below—2°C.

Our methods do not provide a clear answer as to whether the UAE should provide climate finance. On balance, the CAT methodology shows that the provision of a comparatively small amount of international support is consistent with the wide range of literature on fair share contributions to meeting the Paris Agreement's goals.

The CAT rates the UAE’s latest NDC emissions reduction target from as “Critically insufficient” when compared with its fair share contribution to climate action.

The “Critically insufficient” rating indicates that the UAE’s NDC target in 2030 reflects minimal to no action and is not at all consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C. If all countries were to follow the UAE’s approach, warming would exceed 4°C.

The UAE’s NDC rating has been downgraded compared to our previous assessment because we have updated the UAE’s historical data, resulting in higher emissions (excluding LULUCF) compared to the previous assessment.

The latest estimates of F-gas emissions in the UAE are significantly higher, leading to higher historical industry emissions. The CAT’s calculation of the UAE’s latest NDC target also includes PFCs, sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and HFCs which are not covered by the target. For this calculation, the CAT assumes that F-Gases remain constant from the last available historical data point (2022).

The latest historical data shows a significant revision of F-Gas emissions, which is why our estimation of the UAE’s NDC target is significantly above the stated target of 182 MtCO₂e. The UAE is currently preparing a study on these gases as part of its plan to ratify the Kigali Amendment and announced that it will include them in future NDC updates, so this rating might change in future updates.

Further information on how the CAT rates countries (against modelled pathways and fair share) can be found here.

The UAE announced its intention to reach net zero by 2050 in October 2021 as part of the UAE Net Zero 2050 strategic initiative. At COP27, the UAE presented its “National Net Zero by 2050 pathway” with further details. In March 2023, the UAE’s member states signed the UAE Governments Net Zero 2050 Charter, further signalling commitment to reaching net zero. As of March 2023, the UAE has yet to submit a long-term strategy to the UNFCCC but it has announced it would do so before COP28.

We evaluate the net zero target as ‘poor’. For the full analysis click here.