Only 13 of the 195 parties to the Paris Agreement communicated their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) 3.0 plans by the 10 February 2025 deadline.
Parties to the Paris Climate Agreement are required to submit updated national climate plans or Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) every five years to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat.
The second iteration of the NDCs was reviewed at the first Global Stocktake (GST1) at COP 28.
GST1 demonstrated that the world was well off course to meet the 1.5 degrees target of the Paris Agreement, with the aggregated impact of all the NDCs putting the world on course for close to 3 degrees warming by the end of the century.
The Global Stock-take 1 thus mandated parties to the Paris Agreement to develop updated and more ambitious NDCs (NDC3.0) and 10-year plans and to submit them to the secretariat by 10th February 2025, including the targets for 2035.
However, by Monday, 10 February 2025, only 13 countries globally had met this deadline. From the African region, only Zimbabwe made its submission on time.
Other countries that met the deadline include Marshall Islands, Singapore, Saint Lucia, Andorra, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Uruguay, United States of America, Ecuador, Brazil, and the United Arab Emirates.
The African Climate Policy Centre (ACPC) congratulated Zimbabwe on this achievement and is honored to have supported Zimbabwe in updating and communicating its NDC 3.0. ACPC will continue supporting other African member states in this process in the lead-up to COP30.
Given the urgency of the climate emergency, it is not encouraging that only 13 out of the 195 signatories to the Paris Agreement have communicated their national contributions to the climate response. It is not sufficient for parties to communicate NDCs; adequate finance should also be made available to enable their implementation if humanity is to have any realistic chance of preventing irreversible interference with the climate system.
In this regard, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa(UNECA) notes that countries must submit their plans by September at the latest to ensure they are included in the NDC Synthesis Report to be released ahead of Brazil’s COP30.
ACPC will support African member states to update and communicate their NDC 3.0 and long-term low emissions development strategies in this timeline. In addition to supporting countries to reformulate their NDCs, ACPC will also participate in assessments to ensure the alignment of communicated NDCs with the recommendations of GST1 and with a 1.5°C trajectory.
ACPC and UNECA will continue to explore mechanisms and instruments that can be deployed to mobilize the required finance to implement NDCs.
Established by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations (UN) in 1958 as one of the UN’s five regional commissions, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa’s (ECA’s) mandate is to promote the economic and social development of its member states, foster intraregional integration, and promote international cooperation for Africa’s development. ECA is made up of 54 member states and plays a dual role as a regional arm of the UN and as a key component of the African institutional landscape.
Issued by:
Communications Section
Economic Commission for Africa
PO Box 3001
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Tel: +251 11 551 5826
E-mail: [email protected]
