E-Mail IMAGE: Illustrative example of the interpretation of the NLPs using Japan as a case study view more Credit: Fujimori et al. With the COP Climate conference in Glasgow only a few months away, the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and the importance of taking action at the national level to reach global climate goals is returning to the spotlight. IIASA researchers and colleagues have proposed a novel systematic and independent scenario framework that could help policymakers assess and compare climate policies and long-term strategies across countries to support coordinated global climate action. The Paris Agreement defines a long-term temperature goal for international climate policy: "holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C". Its achievement critically depends on actions and policymaking at the regional, national, and subnational level. As part of the Agreement, countries are required to submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and long-term strategies outlining their greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts at the national scale towards 2030 and 2050 respectively. Currently, national scenarios underpinning long-term strategies are however poorly coordinated and difficult to compare across countries, thus preventing the assessment of individual nations' climate policies.