On the first day of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP30), the number of delivered climate targets, or so-called NDCs (the English abbreviation for Nationally Determined Contributions), reached 110, according to a study conducted by the Climate Monitoring Platform. This total represents 71% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
The number jumped on Monday (10) mainly due to the inclusion of the 27 EU member states in the list. As of Friday (7), only the economic bloc document had been counted. The EU’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) are valid for all countries in the bloc, which individually submit a copy of the same document.
National plans are a definition of the Paris Agreement and need to be updated by the 195 signatories every five years. However, only a minority of governments met the original February deadline set by the UN, and even extending the deadline until September was insufficient.
Among the top 10 polluting countries, India, Iran and Saudi Arabia have yet to submit their national plans to the UNFCCC, the UN climate arm.
On Monday, the agency also published an update of its analysis of climate targets achieved. The report covers 86 NDCs, sent by 113 Treaty members (i.e. the EU target is counted only once).
Based on the documents, the UNFCCC estimates that if the targets are met, carbon emissions should fall by about 12% by 2035, compared to 2019 levels. This value is well below the 60% reduction considered necessary to contain global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century.
Despite this, the report indicates that the scenario would be much worse had it not been for the measures adopted in the past decade. “This compares to the expected increase in emissions of between 20% and 48% for the year 2035, before the adoption of the Paris Agreement,” the text stated.
The compilation of the NDCs already submitted will serve as the basis for climate negotiations at the Conference of the Parties (COP30) over the next two weeks.
The gap between necessary emission reductions and the lack of ambition in countries’ promises is one of the points that could be included in the official negotiating agenda. A request to include this topic was submitted by the bloc of small island states – among the countries most affected by rising temperatures.
However, this is one of the most controversial points on the agenda. A decision on this and other contentious points must be made by Wednesday (12).
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