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In the years preceding the adoption of the Paris Agreement, a key question that preoccupied many negotiators was: how can the new agreement build in flexibility for countries to increase the ambition of their mitigation “contributions” (as national actions are now called in the climate negotiations), even after they have communicated them as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs)?

This question was discussed by a number of senior developing country negotiators at the ecbi Oxford Fellowships and Seminar in August 2014. The negotiators considered the domestic challenges often faced in the context of announcing such an international contribution. For instance, many of them pointed out that once contributions are decided nationally and inscribed internationally, they are “politically locked-in” – they have been endorsed at the highest political level nationally, and thereafter they cannot be changed.

To overcome such hurdles, the negotiators came up with the idea of a “Dynamic Contribution Cycle” (DCC). They proposed a cycle based on ten-year periods, but with two five-year contribution terms. At the beginning of each cycle, a country would “inscribe” its contribution for the five years immediately following the start of the cycle, but only “communicate” the contribution for the following five years. As the contribution for the second (five-year) contribution term would only be an initial announcement, not yet fully endorsed at the political level, it would still be flexible and could be ratcheted up before it is finally inscribed – thus increasing ambition.

The DCC idea eventually proved to be a key influence on what might be called the “Contribution Framework” of the Paris Outcome (which comprises the Paris Agreement and Decision 1/CP21). This policy brief analyses the extent to which the Paris Agreement takes on board the ambition element of the DCC, and proposes a simple step that will enhance the ambition element further in the Agreement.

Although the Paris Agreement includes the notions of “communicating” and “updating” contributions, the full ambition potential envisaged in the DCC is not realised because of the two different tracks in the Agreement: a five-year time frame (paragraph 23, or§23, of the Paris Outcome); and a ten-year time frame (§24) track. This division may have been necessary because of the envisaged different time frames in the NDCs, but a certain degree of harmonisation is essential to allow for countries to increase their ambition between the communicating and updating stages. This policy brief finds that this harmonisation can still be achieved, simply by requesting all Parties to communicate a 2035 NDC and to update their 2030 NDC in 2025, and to do so every five years thereafter. This harmonisation would turn the Paris Contribution Framework into a Dynamic Ambition Mechanism, harnessing all the advantages of the DCC proposal despite the Framework’s two different time frames.