This Technical Paper produced by OCP/ecbi for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) as part of their Strategic Partnership looks in some detail at the options under consideration in the negotiations on establishing a common time frame for the national targets (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, one of the three top priority issues to be resolved at COP 26 in Glasgow to finalise the Paris rule book.

It analyses them with regard to 3 procedural prerequisites for accounting and maximizing ambition under the Paris Agreement, namely:

·         synchronized NDC end-years, to allow for taking stock of implementation and assessment of collective progress under the 5-yearly Global Stock Takes, as well as other crucial accounting tasks, such as the avoidance of double counting under the Article 6 emission trading regime

·         synchronized 'updating' (ambition enhancement), and

·         a notification window – the time between the communication year and the end year of the preceding NDC – for (first-time) communications of at least 5 years, to maximize the potential of the synchronized ambition enhancement.

The resulting Key Message for Policy Makers sums up the analysis in a succinct summary of why it is essential to adopt the Glasgow Ambition Cycle at COP 26.