Summer Internship at UNFCCC: A Deep Dive into Low Emissions Development Strategies
By Anton Sauder
Forty-three minutes – as the gavel came down to conclude negotiations on SBSTA’s 62 agenda item on “bunker fuels,” referring to international emissions from aviation and maritime transport.
As we shared this quick win at the report-back in the evening, I still remember the excitement of the SBSTA Chair as he announced that our item had finished first among all negotiation tracks at the June Climate Meetings (SB62). As swiftly as these negotiations wrapped up, the other track I was supporting as part of my internship with the Mitigation Division of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) proved to be a different beast. Negotiations on the Mitigation Work Programme went on for days, followed by delegates breaking into an impromptu huddle minutes before the official end of negotiations, only to conclude in an informal setting after the deadline had passed. Being involved in these intergovernmental climate negotiations, and witnessing firsthand both progress and limitations, was one of the highlights of my internship with the UNFCCC.
My unit, the NDC, LT-LEDS and Sectorial Intergovernmental Support Unit, assists Parties in preparing and communicating their NDCs and long-term low-emissions development strategies, supports negotiations on sector-specific mitigation issues, and organizes mandated events under the Mitigation Work Programme. During my internship, I contributed to mitigation policy analysis by monitoring key developments and assessing their relevance for global mitigation ambition. I also supported the Fifth Global Dialogue and Investment-Focused Event, which brought Parties and non-Party stakeholders together to share national and regional experiences in enhancing forest-sector mitigation.
In addition to supporting multilateral climate negotiations, my main project revolved around contributing to the 2025 NDC Synthesis Report. By compiling and analyzing the collective pledges that countries have committed to in their NDCs, this report quantifies the expected global emissions in 2030 and 2035 and compares those levels with pathways consistent with limiting warming to 1.5°C and 2°C from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. As a transparency tool and political signal, the report highlights the emissions gap – the difference between current NDCs and what science says is needed to meet the temperature goals under the Paris Agreement. Because a new 5-year cycle of NDCs begins in 2025, this year’s report represents the first full picture of mitigation commitments extending to 2035, making it particularly important as an input for multilateral negotiations at COP30 in Bélem and beyond.
By analyzing over 30 NDCs, extracting and classifying hundreds of quantified targets, and ensuring methodological consistency across our team’s work, I have delved into the myriad ways in which economic processes contribute to emissions across sectors, as well as the levers available to reduce them. From no-till farming techniques in agriculture, anaerobic digestion in the waste sector, to zero flaring in the oil and gas industry, analyzing countries’ domestic mitigation measures across all sectors has enabled me to develop a better understanding not just of what drives emissions, but also where abatement is most feasible from a technical perspective based on national circumstances. Working on the report also helped me better understand how the national process of formulating targets and translating them into domestic mitigation measures is deeply influenced by the set-up of the economy, emission profiles, existing institutional structures, and national regulatory environments. Equipped with this new technical literacy, I feel better prepared to contribute professionally to policy solutions that drive meaningful climate action. Over the course of the internship, I improved my understanding of both the technical underpinnings and the political realities of global climate governance, showing me how science, policy, and negotiation intersect in practice.
I am grateful to the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy for supporting my internship at the Secretariat of the UNFCCC, which has been invaluable for my personal and professional development. As this experience has reiterated my desire to work in international climate governance and as I graduate from Fletcher, I am excited to share that my journey at the UNFCCC will continue as a consultant, where I will keep analyzing countries’ NDCs with a view to finalizing the NDC Synthesis Report before COP30 in Bélem.
Anton Sauder worked as an intern with the UNFCCC Mitigation Division in Bonn. He is pursuing the Master of Arts in Transatlantic Affairs (MATA) between the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the College of Europe in Bruges. His work focuses on multilateral climate diplomacy, energy policy, and transatlantic affairs.