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The international community has set a goal to limit global warming to 2 C. Limiting global warming to 2 C is a challenging goal and will entail a dramatic transformation of the global energy system, largely complete by 2040. As part of the work toward this goal, countries have been submitting their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, indicating their emissions reduction commitments through 2025 or 2030, in advance of the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21) in Paris in December 2015. In this paper, we use the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) to analyze the near versus long-term energy and economic-cost implications of these INDCs. The INDCs imply near-term actions that reduce the level of mitigation needed in the post-2030 period, particularly when compared with an alternative path in which nations are unable …