This briefing outlines why long-term strategies are a fundamental component of national climate policy architecture, and how SIDS can benefit from developing one, both directly in terms of prioritising efforts for achieving the Paris Agreement goals, and indirectly through synergies with other sustainable development and resilience goals.

As the interest in using nature-based solutions to mitigate climate change grows, ‘blue carbon,’ which means carbon sequestered in coastal ecosystems, is also garnering attention.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently published its Special Report on 1.5°C (SR15) to guide implementation of the Paris Agreement. Governments are tasked with developing long-term low emission sustainable development strategies (LT-LEDS) in line with the 1.5°C goal, and are invited to submit them by 2020.

To ensure that the aims of the Paris Agreement can be met, progress towards both individual goals (NDCs) and the global goals (e.g. the long-term temperature goal) needs to be tracked. The architecture for tracking progress under the Paris Agreement is a good start, but much work remains to be done to operationalise it.