Current commitments under the Paris Agreement are not sufficient to limit global warming to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels; the UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2015 showed that a mitigation gap of 14 GtCO2e exists for 2030. Against this background international climate initiatives can play an important role for reducing global emissions. This study is a first attempt to quantify the potential impact of international initiatives in comparison to the INDCs. For Brazil, China, the European Union (EU), India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, United States of America (USA) and the “Rest of World”, compare the ambition level of 19 initiatives with those of the INDCs. The initiatives were selected based on their expected contributions, sectoral scope and other criteria. In total sampled 174 initiatives but most did not publish sufficient information, have unclear goals or do not propose concrete actions and were therefore excluded.