General objectives
To implement the Paris Agreement’s goals, greenhouse gas emissions need to be reduced to net-zero around 2050. However, current policies are still insufficient to reach this target and net-zero promises by countries are generally lacking concrete roadmaps how to reach them. ELEVATE aims to create a robust scientific understanding required to strengthen NDCs and current climate policies towards reaching net-zero emissions. For this, ELEVATE brings together a unique multidisciplinary consortium of leading international and national modelling teams, climate policy experts and social scientists. The consortium aims to interact directly with policymakers to define information gaps and attractive policies, thus enhancing usability of the knowledge base and stimulating mutual learning. Based on this, the consortium will systematically assess NDCs and policies at the global and national levels to identify current progress and good practice policies. Subsequently, ELEVATE will look into a range of critical enabling factors related to sectoral action, international climate policy and the relationship with justice and sustainable development that can be leveraged to strengthen action.

CMCC role
MCC is leader of WP4 “International governance and policy” (Tasks co-leadership in Task 4.2 “International governance of climate intervention strategies” and leadership in Task 4.4 “The potential of Paris Article 6 to attain efficiency and equity”) and is involved in all the other WPs (Lead Task 6.3: Transitions scenarios to net-zero).

Activities
ELEVATE’s main aim is to develop transformative new scientific insights to support the preparations of NDCs and national climate policies focused on achieving net-zero emissions mid-century in line with the Paris Agreement. This is done by a transdisciplinary consortium of national and international climate research teams. ELEVATE will feature novel state-of-the-art contributions:

1. support the formulation of new climate policies and NDCs by establishing and facilitating a strong interaction between researchers, policymakers and other stakeholders involved in national and international climate policy for the co-production of knowledge and mutual learning (WP1);
2. identify transformational policies to accelerate climate action beyond NDCs and towards net-zero by conducting a systematic assessment of the impact of current policies (including the ambitions formulated in NDCs and mid-century strategies) for a large range of countries (WP2);
3. enhance the scientific understanding of the technological and behavioural options in different sectors (including energy, transport, industry and land-use), potential political barriers to their implementation and means to overcome them, and the associated transformation pathways to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in light of the net-zero emission target (WP3);
4. identify options to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of international climate governance and policy, including the carbon-border adjustment mechanism (WP4);
5. represent justice and sustainability in climate mitigation pathways by fully integrating insights from social sciences (WP5);
6. develop a new generation of national and global mitigation scenarios in the context of the Paris goals, exploring the ambition of achieving net-zero emission targets, and based on the representation of enabling factors evaluated in WP2-W5 (WP6) fully considering COVID-19 impacts and recovery plans;
7. develop consistent definitions of net-zero emission goals and identify milestones, drivers and barriers towards achieving these in an economically and environmentally responsible and socially inclusive way (WP6);
8. increase worldwide capacity for scientific support of climate policy and share best practices to support the production of scenarios at the national level and inform domestic stakeholders and policymakers (WP7)

The kick-off meeting of the ELEVATE project will take place on 14th and 15th of September, 2022 in The Hague, Netherlands.

Expected results
ELEVATE will allow a new generation of global and national mitigation scenarios, exploring the possibility of strengthening climate policies in countries worldwide and support net-zero goals. It will assess the impact of different ways to formulate net-zero goals and the impact of climate uncertainty. Outcomes will include detailed pathways and milestones on how policies can be strengthened to achieving net-zero goals. ELEVATE will go significantly beyond the state-of-the-art by 1) the inclusion of social sciences in all aspects of the analysis providing significantly improved insights into issues related to implementation and feasibility, 2) the detailed focus on sectoral action, 3) the stakeholder interaction and 4) the direct collaboration between the global and national teams on net-zero emission scenarios.