Half of global greenhouse gas emissions are now covered by a 2035 climate pledge following a key UN summit this week, Carbon Brief analysis finds.
China stole the show at the UN climate summit held in New York on 24 September, announcing a pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035.
However, other major emitters also came forward with new climate-pledge announcements at the event, including the world’s fourth biggest emitter, Russia, and Turkey.
Following the summit, around one-third (63) of countries have now announced or submitted their 2035 climate pledges, known as “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs).
The NDCs are a formal five-yearly requirement under the “ratchet mechanism” of the Paris Agreement, the landmark deal to keep temperatures well-below 2C, with aspirations to keep to 1.5C, by the end of this century.
Nations were meant to have submitted these pledges by 10 February of this year, but around 95% of countries missed this deadline.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell then asked laggard countries to make 2035 pledges by the end of September, so they can be included in a report synthesising countries’ climate progress.
At the summit, many nations shared that they were still working on their NDCs and that they would aim to submit them to the UN before or during COP30 in November.
Halfway there
The map below shows countries that submitted their 2035 pledges by the 10 February deadline (dark blue), after the deadline (blue) and that have now announced their pledge, but not yet submitted it formally to the UN registry (pale blue).
The EU has not yet agreed on a 2035 climate pledge. At the UN climate summit, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced a “statement of intent” to cut emissions somewhere in the range of 66.3-72.5% below 1990 levels by 2035.
She added that the EU would aim to make its formal NDC submission to the UN before COP30 in November.
The world’s second-largest emitter, the US, submitted its 2035 pledge in 2024 under former president Joe Biden.
However, current president Donald Trump has since signed an order to withdraw the country from the Paris Agreement. Therefore, it is now assumed that the US pledge is now void.
More than 100 nations spoke at the UN climate summit, which was held on the margins of the annual UN general assembly in New York.
Some media outlets mistakenly reported that all of these countries “announced” new pledges at the summit.
However, many of the countries speaking at the summit had already submitted their 2035 pledges, or used their slots to promise to do so at a future date.
Carbon Brief reviewed the six hours of footage from the UN climate summit to get a clear picture of which countries announced new 2035 pledges during the event.
Countries that made new NDC target announcements during the event included China, Russia, Turkey, Palau, Tuvalu, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, São Tomé and Príncipe, Fiji, Bangladesh and Eritrea. (Tuvalu has since submitted its NDC to the UN.)
These countries together represent 36% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to Carbon Brief analysis. (It is worth noting that China alone accounts for 29% of emissions.)
Some 53 countries have already submitted their 2035 climate pledges to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These nations account for 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Therefore, countries that have either announced or submitted their 2035 climate pledges now represent half of global emissions, according to Carbon Brief analysis. (The 50% figure excludes the US and the EU for the reasons outlined above.)
Missing emitters
Despite the new announcements, two-thirds of nations have still not submitted their 2035 climate pledges, according to Carbon Brief analysis.
This includes major emitters, such as India, Indonesia and Mexico.
According to the Hindu, India plans to submit its 2035 climate pledge at the beginning of COP30 on 10 November.
Both Mexico and Indonesia spoke at the UN climate summit. Mexico said it was “still consulting industries” about its proposed target, while Indonesia made no mention of when it might submit its NDC.
Many other nations appearing at the summit made promises to submit their 2035 climate pledges by COP30.
This might mean that many nations miss the end of September deadline set by UN climate chief Simon Stiell to be included in an upcoming NDC synthesis report.
The post Analysis: Half of global emissions covered by 2035 climate pledges after UN summit in New York appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Half of global emissions covered by 2035 climate pledges after UN summit in New York
Three countries have been named by the Paris Agreement’s compliance committee for failing to submit a nationally determined contribution (NDC) and repeatedly snubbing offers of help with their climate plans.
After months of internal debate over whether to identify serial non-responders, the Paris Agreement’s Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) named the three countries which have failed to engage with it over their NDCs on Friday.
It named Democratic Republic of Congo, Senegal and North Korea in a footnote of its annual report, adding that it decided to name them “with a view to facilitating engagement”, adding that representatives of the three nations had been invited to its meeting in early 2027 “with the purpose of identifying any challenges and constraints”.
“The Committee noted the importance of Parties engaging with the Committee in a timely manner, while noting that some delays may be due to the national capabilities and circumstances of the Parties”, the report said.
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In July, PAICC said 12 countries had ignored its repeated attempts to discuss why they had not published an NDC as required every five years under the 2015 Paris accord.
Members of the committee had been divided over whether to name them, but at a September meeting decided to do so in their annual report to the annual climate COP summit.
By the time the report was published on Friday, only Congo, Senegal and North Korea “had not communicated an NDC or submitted a [Biennial Transparency Report] and had not yet responded to any of the Committee’s notifications, despite several reminders issued by the Committee in this regard”.
Rainforest and renewable energy ambitions
The silence from Congo and Senegal is notable because the former is home to much of the Congo Basin rainforest while the latter has sought billions of dollars in climate finance to support its renewable energy ambitions.
After Brazil, Congo has more rainforest than any country in the world. This forest, and the country’s peatlands, absorb huge amounts of greenhouse gas but are fast being lost to expanding farmland, charcoal production, logging and mining.
Senegal signed a Just Energy Transition Partnership with Canada and wealthy European nations in 2023, to help it meet its renewable energy targets under the-then government of Macky Sall. It was chair of the Least Developed Countries group between January 2022 and December 2023.
Tejas Rao, who is researching the PAICC as part of a doctoral thesis at Cambridge University, said the governments of the three countries should engage with the committee.
“Engagement costs these governments very little and the committee has shown it will listen,” he said.
“Silence leaves the committee with no basis to help, and it leaves the [governments] exposed to the narrative that they are simply disengaged,” he told Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement requirement
The 2015 Paris Agreement requires all parties to publish an NDC every five years outlining their emissions reduction targets, with each plan meant to be more ambitious than the country’s last NDC.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in February 2025. While most countries missed this deadline, all but around 30 – mostly small emitters but including Egypt, Vietnam and Argentina – have now submitted them.
Over the year, the PAICC – which is made up of government climate officials from developed and developing countries – has been communicating with governments that have not submitted NDCs and trying to overcome barriers to them doing so.
Some nations have cited exceptional circumstances as the reason for not submitting an NDC, a process that requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC, seen by Climate Home News, said that the country’s civil war had led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement and so do not have active NDCs, nor does Taiwan, which is not a UN member state.
Rao said that because the PAICC is “facilitative and non-punitive”, naming the countries “is meant to open a door, not close one – the invited consultation is the point”.
“In recent months, governments that explained their constraints, whether capacity, finance or domestic process, have been met with follow-up and support rather than sanction, and the number of silent governments has fallen sharply,” Rao said.
The post Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs appeared first on Climate Home News.
Paris Agreement committee names three countries snubbing it over NDCs