The next round of “nationally determined contributions” (NDC) to the Paris Agreement, outlining countries’ climate goals to 2035, are due by February 2025.
They are also set to be an important agenda item at COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan later this month.
China, as the world’s current largest emitter, has not yet confirmed when it will publish its next NDC. Its current NDC formalised the country’s “dual-carbon” targets of peaking emissions by 2030 and reaching carbon neutrality by 2060 – a pledge that has formed the cornerstone of China’s climate strategy since it was announced in 2020.
Despite the country already achieving some of its existing NDC targets early, such as wind and solar capacity reaching 1,200 gigawatts (GW), it is not on track to meet others.
In addition, China’s recent stimulus package to “promote economic recovery” may lead to energy-intensive growth, exacerbating its “lagging behind” on current energy intensity and carbon-intensity targets.
Several groups, including Climate Action Tracker, the International Energy Agency and the Centre for Research on Energy and Air, have set out what it would take to align China’s targets with the 1.5C limit or its existing national goals.
Below, Carbon Brief asks nine leading experts what they expect to see in China’s 2035 NDC.
These are their responses, first as sample quotes, then, below, in full. They have been edited for clarity and length:
- Todd Stern: “If the Chinese come in with a 5-10% target, it will be very bad.”
- Yao Zhe: “Stronger climate action and more ambitious targets are unmistakably an economic boon for China.”
- Anders Hove: “China’s past NDCs have tended to reflect trends underway…rather than adopting ambitious new goals.”
- Byford Tsang: “Policy signals…suggest that China’s upcoming climate target is going to be conservative.”
- Li Shuo: “Some experts believe that China will adopt its emissions peak as the base year for its 2035 target.”
- Niklas Höhne and Bill Hare: “China needs to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030 and by 66% by 2035 from 2023 levels.”
- Hu Min and Chen Meian: “China’s new NDC is expected to reflect heightened domestic momentum for decarbonisation, as well as subnational and sector-specific initiatives.”
- Lauri Myllyvirta: “China needs to reduce emissions by at least 30% from 2023 to 2035…It seems more likely that the decision-makers will target a reduction that is a fraction of this.”
- Lu Lunyan: “We hope China will consider setting clear and ambitious targets for total greenhouse gas emissions, including non-CO2 gases such as methane.”
Todd Stern
Senior fellow (former US special envoy for climate change and Barack Obama’s chief climate negotiator), in response to Carbon Brief at a Chatham House event
The Brookings Institution
There was an agreement back at the time of Paris that countries would put their [NDC] proposals in early enough in the year, and this was actually our [the US’s] idea, so there would be enough time for the press, other countries, analysts to criticise [targets] – and countries, knowing that they would be criticised, would do their best. That was the theory.
The new NDC targets are supposed to be put in February…It is going to be tremendously important that those [represent] a big step forward because…what happens in these upcoming targets is enormously important for the mid-century goals [net-zero emissions by 2050]…If the NDCs announced in 2025 to last until 2035 come up really short, if they’re effectively pretty weak, then you’ve just killed your chance to get anything done that you needed to get done by 2050 because you’re only 15 years away by 2035…
[China is] the most important country in the world right now, with respect to their target. I think that other major players – the US, EU, Japan, Canada, Korea, Australia – are…going to put in pretty ambitious, pretty strong targets of the kind that you want to see. China now [accounts for] 30% of global emissions, and China is basically peaking [carbon emissions] about now…if not this year then next year. At 30% of emissions, people [at the Asia Society and elsewhere] have done analysis…basically saying that in order to be where we need to be we need to see something like a 30% reduction from China [by 2035]. I am sure [this] is certainly not what the Chinese are thinking of at the moment, but we’ll see how much of a chance there is to move. If the Chinese come in with a 5-10% target, it will be very bad.
Yao Zhe
Global policy advisor
Greenpeace East Asia
I think it’s time for a mindset shift in designing the new NDC. So far, Chinese policy makers have taken a cautious approach, obviously constrained by the challenges in the domestic economy. But, in fact, stronger climate action and more ambitious targets are unmistakably an economic boon for China.
The cleantech industry is emerging as a new economic driver in China, and companies are continuing to invest and expand their production capacity in anticipation of strong future demand. The conventional “under-promise, over-deliver” style of target-setting is not enough for the industry.
An update of the renewable energy target is expected in China’s new NDC. A stronger target for the next 5-10 years will help expand the domestic market and give industry and investors the confidence they need. It will also lay the groundwork for an ambitious NDC, which will include an absolute emissions target for the first time, and its successful implementation.
However, China’s clean energy potential can only be fully realised with clearer plans to move away from fossil fuels. The continued expansion of the coal fleet is at odds with the historic development of renewables. The new NDC should address this contradiction by committing to no new coal power.
Anders Hove
Senior research fellow
Oxford Institute for Energy Studies
China’s past NDCs have tended to reflect trends underway, and highlighted concrete targets that are already on track to be met, rather than adopting ambitious new goals. The “dual-carbon” targets represented an exception – albeit a critically important one – where China saw a benefit to taking a global leadership position and going beyond existing domestic policy.
A modest NDC would likely highlight targets related to renewable energy as a share of electricity production, continued steady growth in wind and solar capacity, and possibly electric vehicle adoption. Renewable capacity and electric vehicles are fields where China can showcase its success, scale and leadership without breaking new ground. China will almost certainly emphasise its steady roll-out of carbon trading to new sectors.
At times of economic softness, China’s leaders may see little benefit to setting ambitious public targets for reducing carbon emissions, especially if they also perceive other countries backing away from aggressive initiatives. A major transition to decreasing carbon emissions is more likely to require testing and experimentation domestically, as a first step.
Byford Tsang
Senior policy fellow
European Council on Foreign Relations
A reading of policy signals from the recent past suggest that China’s upcoming climate target is going to be conservative: coal plant approvals spiked in the years following a pledge to “strictly limit” coal power; official data showing that China is on track to miss its own 2025 carbon intensity targets; and the country’s top energy agency has proposed an annual installation target that would slow down clean-energy deployment. However, these developments contrast with the significant progress made in China’s energy transition, as the addition of renewable power capacity is on track to meet its annual increase in power demand.
The extent to which Beijing addresses this misalignment is both a climate policy decision and an economic one. The quest to find new growth drivers after the recent real estate slump is top priority for the government. How Beijing decides to rebalance its economy to drive growth, [and which] sectors it prioritises in the tried-and-tested approach to channel investment in infrastructure and manufacturing, will dictate China’s emission trajectory for years to come. Decisions that limit Beijing’s options – such as an emissions target that would constrain the sectors economic planners can leverage as drivers of growth, is likely to be a challenging argument to win in Zhongnanhai.
Li Shuo
Director of the China Climate Hub
Asia Society Policy Institute
China is developing its 2035 NDC under exceptional circumstances. China’s economic slowdown, its 2035 targets being its first post-2030-peaking international commitment and the transition from intensity-based targets to absolute emission targets bring both tremendous challenges and opportunities for ambition. One Chinese expert I spoke to recently reflected: “I wish China’s NDC setting was as simple as pinning down a midpoint in a straight line.”
At least three variables will determine the quality of China’s headline commitment. The first is the quantum [the minimum amount] of emissions reduction. The second is the base year from which emissions will be reduced. The third is the sectoral and greenhouse gas coverage of China’s target. Depending on political will, Chinese decision-makers could plant ambiguities in any, none, or all these variables. Commitment could, therefore, be as vague as “by 2035, China’s emissions will have peaked and seen a steady decline”, or as clear as “by 2035, China’s greenhouse gas emissions covering all economic sectors will be reduced by X% based on Y year”.
Some experts believe that China will adopt its emissions peak as the base year for its 2035 target. For example, [they could say]: “By 2035, China emissions will be reduced by X% based on emissions peak.” This formulation could see China not specifying when and at what level its emissions will peak, extending the ambiguity in its updated 2030 NDC – to peak CO2 emission before 2030 – to 2035. If such a formulation is chosen, it will make the question of when, and based on what conditions, Beijing will confirm its emission peak ever more important. Currently, Beijing’s policymakers do not believe China’s emissions have peaked.
Citing poor baseline data, experts also believe that it is hard to expect gas-specific targets for non-CO2 gases in China’s upcoming NDC. This risks perpetuating a “chicken-and-egg” question, namely: should China wait until it has enough data to start cutting emissions, or should it impose reduction targets so as to accelerate better data gathering?
Part of the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) and NewClimate Institute &
Co-founder and CEO, Climate Analytics, and part of CAT
In order to align with 1.5C, China would need to increase the ambition of its 2030 NDC as well as putting forward a 1.5C aligned 2035 set of targets. Alignment of a countries’ NDC with the Paris Agreement’s 1.5C goal was an agreed outcome of the global stocktake last year.
In terms of total greenhouse gases emissions, excluding LULUCF (land use, land-use change and forestry), China’s emissions…reached a record high in 2023. According to CAT projections, emissions could peak before 2025, with the possibility that 2023 marked the peak. However, without additional commitments, emissions may rise again before 2030. Amid discussions on China setting a percentage reduction target from peak emission levels, CAT recommends basing the 2035 NDC on a historical baseline. The uncertainties surrounding peak emissions make it challenging to evaluate the level of ambition in future targets.
China, like all countries, must also raise the ambition of its 2030 target. CAT’s modelled domestic pathways indicate that China needs to reduce emissions by 55% by 2030 and by 66% by 2035 from 2023 levels (excl. LULUCF) to align with the Paris Agreement. A minimum 28% reduction in total GHG emissions (excl. LULUCF) from 2023 levels by 2035 is crucial for China to stay on track for its 2060 domestic net-zero target, assuming a linear decline in emissions from the peak to 2060.
China is on track to meet its previous NDC target of a 25% share of non-fossil fuels in total primary energy consumption by 2030: CAT’s modelled domestic pathways suggest that China should increase its non-fossil energy share to 73-84% by 2030 and 76-91% by 2035 to align with the Paris Agreement.
Hu Min and Chen Meian
Director and co-founder, Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress (iGDP) & Senior program director and senior analyst, iGDP
Regardless of its performance in various sectoral targets set in its current NDC, China is on track to fulfil its economy-wide overarching commitment of peaking CO2 emissions before 2030.
China’s new NDC is expected to reflect heightened domestic momentum for decarbonisation, as well as subnational and sector-specific initiatives, which have advanced the country’s specific climate targets beyond its initial international commitments, especially in renewable energy and electric vehicles (EVs).
The new NDC might also reflect ongoing domestic adjustments to the mitigation indicator system evaluating mitigation progress, such as by including a carbon budget system. This would be an encouraging move to address absolute carbon mitigation instead of the intensity target.
Incorporating mitigation measures for non-CO2 gas emissions could bridge the nation’s short-term CO2 peaking target for 2030 with its 2060 long-term carbon neutrality ambitions. China’s newly issued policies addressing methane and other non-CO2 emissions across agriculture, waste, and industry demonstrate China’s broadened climate strategy beyond CO2. This comprehensive approach enhances its ability to meet multi-gas mitigation goals, reinforcing the strength of its NDC as a commitment to tackling climate change across all greenhouse gases.
The new NDC would need to take into account the huge diversity of regional and subnational mitigation pathways and the desire to achieve a just-transition goal within China. Furthermore, international collaboration will have to balance the challenges posed by geopolitical shifts.
Lauri Myllyvirta
Lead analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)
and senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute
China is in the unique position of being able to single-handedly scupper the goals of the Paris Agreement, if it allows emissions to grow until just before 2030 and pursues slow and gradual emission reductions thereafter. In this scenario, China alone would use up almost the entire global carbon budget for 1.5C.
China’s emissions are stabilising at the moment, and if the rapid rate of clean energy additions is maintained, it will begin pushing the country’s emissions down.
However, recent policies and statements from China’s top policymakers show that they are still expecting emissions to keep rising until just before 2030 and to then fall very gradually. As long as the policymakers think in terms of a late 2020s peak, there is also little time to reduce emissions from that peak by 2035.
While China needs to reduce emissions by at least 30% from 2023 to 2035, and such reductions are achievable building on current positive trends, it seems more likely that the decision-makers will target a reduction that is a fraction of this, also falling short of the rate of reductions needed to get to carbon neutrality before 2060.
In addition to the 2035 headline target, updating 2030 targets is important. China is severely off track to some of the country’s key 2030 commitments…Reinforcing these targets in the new NDC is essential.
Since the target for wind and solar capacity was already, and entirely predictably, met, this leaves an obvious placeholder for a new target. Maintaining current rates of wind and solar additions would take total capacity to 3,000GW by 2030, and would align with the global goal of tripling renewable energy capacity. Current discussions reference numbers below 2,500GW, however, so it will be important to set an “at least” target or a range. [Such] expansionary targets…could also have more traction amid concerns about the economy.
There is a long list of other sectoral targets that could be included [to] shore up ambition, such as targets for [uptake of] EVs, rail freight and electric steelmaking and for the share of buildings retrofitted to meet energy efficiency standards.
Lu Lunyan
CEO
WWF China
A robust NDC is critical not only for achieving China’s climate goals but also for solidifying its role as a global leader in sustainability. While China has achieved notable progress, including advancing clean technologies and exceeding renewable energy targets ahead of schedule, challenges remain in reducing carbon intensity, transition away from coal, and fully meeting all NDC commitments.
Looking forward to the 2035 NDC, we hope China will consider setting clear and ambitious targets for total greenhouse gas emissions, including non-CO2 gases such as methane, alongside increasing the share of non-fossil fuels, and aligning with the Paris Agreement on the path to net-zero. In addition, sector-specific decarbonisation strategies, particularly for heavy industries, transportation and power generation, will be crucial to achieving meaningful emission reduction.
We also want to encourage stronger alignment between climate and biodiversity agendas by proposing the establishment of a climate and nature workstream within the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement negotiations, aligned with the Global Biodiversity Framework. This initiative could be advanced through the coordinated national plans required by both the climate and biodiversity conventions, fostering synergies between the two agendas. By integrating these efforts, the effectiveness of climate action can be enhanced while safeguarding ecosystems. We encourage China to initiate the discussion as the COP15 presidency.
The post Experts: What to expect in China’s climate pledge for 2035 appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Amira Odeh Quiñones is a hydrologist and Caribbean organiser for the 350.org climate campaign group
El Niño, likely to be one of the strongest in modern history, has arrived on Caribbean shores.
Drought is slowly creeping up on our islands. But unlike the fiery wildfires ravaging parts of Europe, there’s no smoke signalling the damage being done, no sirens to warn of the danger. Only announcements from public health officials to stay indoors and remain hydrated — as if outdoor workers and farming communities have the luxury to heed such advice.
During El Niño, strong atmospheric winds alter rain patterns and trap heat across the Caribbean. But while we have experienced El Niño many times before, it has become very visible in recent years how climate change is making this natural phenomenon worse.
Across the Greater Antilles, temperatures are soaring past 38°C (100°F), with real-feel indexes reaching a gruelling 43°C in parts of Puerto Rico where I live. Cuba has it worse. Widespread power outages mean that methods for cooling down are unavailable for most of the day, leaving millions of vulnerable people at risk of heat stroke when temperatures hit 38°C.
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During the last strong drought a decade ago, I had water only two days a week in my home. Today, there are many families whose taps are about to run completely dry. Water authorities have already begun strict rationing in some municipalities, with more on the list scheduled for rationing if conditions don’t change.
Water rationing is far more than an inconvenience; it is an immediate health risk. This means thousands of people need to constantly haul heavy buckets up flights of stairs just so they could bathe, cook, stay hydrated – the basics of survival.
Heat causes health problems
Puerto Rico is home to roughly 300,000 elderly residents. Many live alone, isolated and without support. They risk severe physical injury when carrying heavy water containers, and are wont to suffer from silent heat exhaustion in unventilated rooms.
Furthermore, when water shortages force residents to store water in open household containers, it inadvertently creates breeding grounds for Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Paired with scorching temperatures that tend to shorten the mosquito breeding cycle, the region is facing explosive outbreaks of dengue fever that endanger our most vulnerable: children and the elderly.
The economic fallout is equally devastating. Dry fields mean millions of dollars in lost crops, forcing small agricultural businesses to collapse, needing urgent government relief to survive. Extreme fuel shortages have already paralyzed Cuba’s agricultural sector, cutting food output by 60% – the El Niño dry spell threatens to decimate it.
At sea, warmer ocean waters fuel massive influxes of sargassum seaweed. Rotting sargassum chokes our beaches, destroying the local tourism industry that so many working families rely on. Tangled seaweed also damages nets and boat engines, slashing fish catches and driving up equipment costs for local fishers.
In the south of Puerto Rico, the coastal town of La Parguera is currently witnessing a historic amount of sargassum on its shores. This has halted most of the boating activity in the area, which is the seaside town’s main tourist draw and economic driver.
All over the Caribbean, from town halls to local group gatherings, the story I hear is always the same: constant headaches, lost work hours, failing health, and a sense that quality of life is silently being stolen. The compounding effects of heatwaves, drought, and marine destruction are exhausting our people, our islands.
Climate change to blame
Climate change makes each El Niño year hotter and more damaging. Higher baseline global temperatures increase the energy and moisture available for extreme weather. Latest projections show that El Niño may push the monthly global average temperature past 2°C of warming for the first time in early 2027. In the Caribbean islands, that will not just be breaking records – it’ll be breaking lives.
Recently, I had the opportunity to share a panel with climate scientists behind what is known as the field of “attribution science” – or the science that compares today’s climate conditions to what the Earth’s climate would be like without human activity, particularly burning fossil fuels. They’re unequivocal: it’s no longer a question of whether extreme weather is caused by climate change, it’s just a question of how much.
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Attribution science recently got a boost from the U.S.’ top scientific advisory body. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recognized that researchers’ methods have advanced considerably in recent years, resulting in better assessments on how much extreme weather can be attributed to human-caused climate change. It noted that attribution findings could be relevant in some types of legal cases, including those seeking damages from oil companies for climate impacts.
This crisis, which is already taking a heavy toll on our communities’ survival, needs real, urgent, and structural action that goes beyond aid. With similar droughts now gripping parts of Asia and Africa, we’re falling into the familiar narrative of treating the looming humanitarian crisis as if no one was to blame, as if it is being caused solely by a natural phenomenon we can’t control.
It’s not. The world was already on fire before its regular visitor, El Niño, came. While we need humanitarian action, we need climate action too, in order to permanently put out the flames.
The post When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño appeared first on Climate Home News.
When taps run dry in the Caribbean, it’s not enough to blame El Niño
China has released a five-year plan dedicated to addressing climate change.
The 15th five-year plan for a national response to climate change is the latest in a series to outline in-depth climate and energy targets for the 2026-2030 period.
These include five-year plans for “building a Beautiful China”, developing a “new-type energy system” and developing renewable energy.
There are also separate “action plans” for the 2026-2030 period, such as for peaking carbon emissions.
China has pledged to peak its emissions before 2030 and reach carbon neutrality before 2060.
The new plan does not include any major new targets, instead consolidating and reaffirming existing policies.
Nevertheless, it includes significant signals on key policy areas, such as non-carbon dioxide (CO2) greenhouse gases, global climate governance and carbon markets.
Below, Carbon Brief examines some of the notable elements in the latest five-year plan and what it reveals about China’s policy direction through to 2030.
What does the climate plan cover?
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) released the plan in late July, in unison with 18 other government departments. These include the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency, and the National Energy Administration.
The document covers a range of topics, including CO2 emissions, other greenhouse gases (non-CO2 GHGs), carbon markets, carbon footprints, climate adaptation and international cooperation on climate change.
For the first time at the five-year plan level, the plan creates a comprehensive target system covering all areas of climate policy, say officials in a MEE Q&A.
They describe it as “the main policy instrument” for advancing China’s climate action during 2026-2030.
China rarely issues high-level multi-year policies dedicated to “responding to climate change”. In 2014, the NDRC published a plan on the topic running through to 2020, but this was not linked to a five-year plan period.
Qin Yan, principal analyst at ClearBlue Markets, tells Carbon Brief that the plan shows that China’s climate governance has reached “an unprecedented strategic level”.
She adds that the plan creates an “all-encompassing target system” to support China’s Paris Agreement climate pledges for 2030 and 2035.
In its 2030 pledge, China aimed to peak emissions “before 2030” and reduce carbon intensity – its emissions per unit of GDP – by more than 65% from 2005 levels.
Last year, president Xi Jinping personally announced China’s 2035 pledge to cut China’s greenhouse gas emissions to 7-10% below peak levels by 2035, while “striving to do better”.
The five-year plan marks a new phase in China’s climate policy, according to researchers at CIB Research, an economic research body affiliated with the Industrial Bank, whose largest shareholder is the Fujian provincial government.
Their analysis adds that the plan represents a broad effort to strengthen China’s climate-governance system, implementation mechanisms and underlying capacity.
Nevertheless, several headline targets and policies in the document simply reiterate already established plans.
These include:
- Cutting carbon intensity by 17% across the five years
- Reducing carbon intensity per product in industries under China’s carbon market by 3%
- Substituting fossil fuels with renewables
- Strengthening climate adaptation
- Supporting the “free flow” of cleantech
What does the plan say about non-CO2 GHGs?
The plan also goes into detail on China’s approach to non-CO2 GHGs. This includes reaffirming a target of an emissions “reduction capacity” from these gases totalling 30m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) by 2030, although the baseline is unclear.
The target previously appeared in the overarching five-year plan, as well as the plan for building a “Beautiful China”.
The goal refers to emissions reductions, which can be realised through implementing current non-CO2 emissions reduction policies and projects, says Chen Meian, programme director and senior analyst at the Institute for Global Decarbonization Progress (iGDP).
She adds that it is “relatively achievable”, with sources including increasing the number of coal-mine methane utilisation projects.
She points to an MEE explanatory note for a draft methodology under the China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) scheme, China’s voluntary carbon-credit market. Chen says the note suggests that projects using ventilation air methane and coal-mine methane with concentrations below 8% alone could deliver around 20MtCO2e of reduction by 2030.
The note states that, currently, such projects are estimated to be able to “generate annual emission reductions of approximately 4.5MtCO2e”.
In addition, Chen says, measures targeting industrial nitrous oxide (N2O) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) could help make up the remainder needed to meet the target.
According to iGDP analysis of biennial reports submitted by China to the UNFCCC, China emitted around 14,000MtCO2e of GHGs in 2021, excluding land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF).
Non-CO2 GHGs accounted for around 2,700MtCO2e, or 19%, of the total, the majority of which was methane, as shown in the figure below.
China’s plans to curb these super-pollutants in the five-year period include coal-mine methane utilisation projects, end-of-pipe destruction technologies for HFCs and guidance on the use of catalysts to reduce N2O emissions.
The plan also calls for the recovery and replacement of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) in power equipment.
For Chen, the plan’s focus on SF6 control is particularly noteworthy. She says the gas is “finally receiving policy attention” and that proactive action is “timely and will help avoid future emissions growth” as China’s power system expands.
What does the plan say about global climate governance?
One of the plan’s clearest objectives for international cooperation is for China to play a more active role in global climate governance.
By 2030, it says China should markedly increase its “influence, guiding power, shaping power and moral appeal” in this area.
It says China’s climate action could also feed into the Global Governance Initiative, a policy initiative aimed at reforming the global governance system.
China will also aim to “build a new narrative on climate governance”, it adds.
Prof Thomas Hale, a professor in public policy at the University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government, writes on LinkedIn that the plan “marks a major rhetorical shift” towards China being increasingly willing to “lead and shape” global climate action.
Another clear focal point for international cooperation is in carbon markets.
The plan calls for China to expand the global influence of its carbon market, such as through international rule-setting, cooperation on standards and by hosting the China Carbon Market Conference.
Qin says China’s more active role in global carbon pricing is already evident in the launch of the open coalition on compliance carbon markets with the EU and Brazil. This coalition is expected to adopt a work plan at the China Carbon Market Conference in September.
Qin also notes that China “could become the world’s largest [carbon] offset buyer” as its energy transition progresses.
The country would, therefore, “benefit from helping shape global rules under the Article 6 framework [for carbon trading under the Paris Agreement]”, she adds.
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The post Q&A: What is in China’s new five-year plan for climate change? appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Q&A: What is in China’s new five-year plan for climate change?
About a quarter of the countries signed up to the Paris Agreement are still breaching its rules by failing to submit a new national climate plan, 18 months after the February 2025 deadline.
Forty-five nations had not submitted a plan known as a nationally determined contribution (NDC), according to the Paris Agreement Implementation and Compliance Committee’s (PAICC) newly-published report of its 7-10 July 2026 meeting. One, Oman, has published it since the meeting.
Twelve countries ignored the committee’s repeated attempts to find out why they had not yet produced a climate plan, the report said. They will be invited to the committee’s next meeting, from September 1-4, so it can identify the challenges and constraints they face.
Members of the committee are divided, as they were at their last meeting, on whether to name those countries publicly and will debate the question again in September.
The PAICC does not have any power to punish governments, as building these powers into the Paris Agreement was thought to be so controversial that it could have stopped some governments from joining, experts have previously told Climate Home News.
A key requirement of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement is that governments publish a more ambitious NDC every five years, setting targets to reduce their planet-heating emissions and outlining their policies to adapt to climate change, in order to meet the accord’s goals on limiting global warming and protecting people from its effects.
The latest set – the third round of plans, with new targets for 2035 – was due in 2025.
Some medium-sized emitters
Countries without an updated NDC include Egypt, Vietnam, Argentina and the Phillippines, all of which rank among the world’s 40 largest greenhouse gas emitters. The rest of the countries are smaller, poorer nations, with many in Africa or the Caribbean.
Some nations have argued that they cannot put together an NDC – which requires a significant amount of work in tracking emissions and consulting on how to curb them across the economy – because of exceptional circumstances. For example, a letter from a Sudanese official to the PAICC committee, seen by Climate Home News, says that the country’s civil war has led to the suspension of its NDC preparation.
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The US and Iran are not signed up to the Paris Agreement, although the US submitted a 2035 NDC under the Biden administration before Donald Trump pulled the US out of the UN climate accords.
The committee also expressed concern that the UN’s NDC registry continued to label the climate plans of countries that are no longer party to the Paris Agreement as “active”, according to its report. The US submission has since been archived.
Since the last PAICC meeting in March, ten countries have published NDCs. The committee did not name them but they include India, Algeria, Cameroon and Guyana.
The post Quarter of countries still missing UN climate plans 18 months after deadline appeared first on Climate Home News.
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