UN Climate Change News, 14 March 2024 – More than 50 development and implementing organization gathered in-person and virtually in Bonn this month to discuss approaches to support countries in formulating the next round of national climate action plans, known as nationally determined contributions (NDCs).

NDCs are submitted every five years to the UNFCCC secretariat and this is the third round, due by early 2025. The second round of NDCs in its totality has shown that current efforts and plans are insufficient to put the world on track to achieve the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.

The 2025 NDCs (NDCs 3.0) will determine to a large extent whether the world can get on an emissions trajectory that is in line with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement and whether countries will be able to build up adequate resilience to climate change.

The meeting was convened by UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell, who said: “This next round of NDCs may be the most important documents to be produced in a multilateral context so far this century.

As they add up, they will determine which direction the world will take over the coming decades. It can be a direction where economic growth is gradually cancelled out by the cost of disaster management, rebuilding, and loss and damage. Or it can be one where we manage to set our economies and our societies on a sustainable, long-term pathway over the coming 5-10 years.”

The 2025 NDCs are to present national plans with a time horizon of 2035 and are to be submitted in advance of the UN Climate Change Conference COP30 that is scheduled for November 2025.

Crucial guidance for NDCs provided by first global stocktake

The NDCs 3.0 are to be informed by the outcome of the first global stocktake which concluded at COP28 at the end of 2023.

The stocktake showed that efforts to hold global average temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius are insufficient. And it showed that whole-of economy systems transformations are needed that would lower emissions, strengthen resilience, and unlock the resources needed, in a just and sustainable way.

Each country’s NDC should contain information on how the GST outcome has been reflected.

Nations’ response to the global stocktake also included agreement on the need to transition away from fossil fuels to renewables such as wind and solar power, and the need to step up efforts to build resilience to the inevitable impacts of climate change.

Stiell pointed out that the new NDCs need to “be implementable, unlock finance, kick-start transformative developments, and to ensure that no-one is being left behind.”

“I think of NDCs as the key to clean investments. NDCs need to incorporate investment plans that give a clear signal to the world, to investors, and to donors, of how countries plan to tackle climate change,” he said.

Next steps in NDC support

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Stiell will reconvene the group of development and implementing organizations regularly to keep them abreast of progress of countries in developing and communicating their new NDCs.

And these organizations will regularly share information on’ on how they are progressing in providing the crucial support Parties need to develop effective NDCs.  

In addition, the six UNFCCC Regional Collaboration Centres will, together with the NDC Partnership, take the conversation from this month’s global meeting into the regions.

This will happen for example through organizing capacity-building meetings and webinars in support of countries in their efforts to design ambitious climate action plans.

Some good news is that over the years, NDC documents have become increasingly robust, by, for example, including more specific plans to build resilience to climate change and ensuring that gender perspectives are more often considered.

And so has the guidance coming from the intergovernmental process, not least through the global stocktake.

Concluding the first meeting on NDCs of its kind, Stiell lauded the positive spirit of collaboration among all support organizations, and the fact that they both recognize the urgency of the task at hand.

“Together, I think we have reached a shared understanding of what is needed to create a new generation of NDCs. To achieve this vision, technical details and precision will be important. And we’ll need serious political support to make sure these plans stick,” he said.

Please see the relevant Message to Parties and observer States from UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell - From Vision to Reality: NDCs 3.0 –bending the curve.

For more information, please contact ndc@unfccc.int