Existing national climate goals, commonly known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs),are ‘not nearly ambitious enough’ to limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI). ALSO READ: Rwanda unveils $11bn climate action plan NDCs are national climate action plans by each country under the Paris Agreement, a treaty adopted by countries in 2016 with the aim to limit global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius, while pursuing efforts to limit the increase to 1.5 degrees. A country's NDC outlines how it plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to help meet the global goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius and adapt to the impacts of climate change. The Paris Agreement, negotiated in 2015, requires that NDCs are updated every five years with increasingly higher ambition, taking into consideration each country’s capacity. Countries have to update their NDCs by February, 2024, under the terms of the Paris Agreement – and some may announce their targets at COP29 in November. ALSO READ: The Paris Agreement: An opportunity for Rwanda The World Resources Institute’s Climate Watch platform launched an interactive NDC Tracker ahead of COP29, which will enable users to track and analyse the new submissions. “The actions outlined in existing NDCs are on track for a catastrophic 2.5-2.9°C of warming by 2100,” it says. In 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) summary of five years of reports said that to keep within the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit, emissions need to be reduced by at least 43 per cent by 2030 compared to 2019 levels and at least 60 per cent by 2035. The 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Azerbaijan also focuses on ‘enhancing ambition,’ ensuring countries commit to ambitious national targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ALSO READ: How climate change effects are leaving farmers vulnerable These commitments form the backbone of global efforts to combat climate change, and the deadline to update them is looming at the start of 2025. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), countries have made progress since the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015. However, it also reiterates that, current NDC commitments fall far short of what is needed to limit global temperature rise to acceptable levels, with current commitments on track for 2.5-2.9 degrees Celsius of warming. How Rwanda is faring The World Economic Forum says there is a significant disparity between countries’ existing NDC targets and their actual implementation, meaning emissions will likely be higher in 2030 than current NDCs would imply. An analysis by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) found that developing and vulnerable nations are “making concrete progress on ambition.” For example, pledges from African countries are more robust than the global average, the report said. Faustin Munyazikwiye, Rwanda's lead negotiator in the UN Climate talks at COP29 told The New Times that Rwanda is assessing its NDC implementation. “Rwanda's NDC is on track and we are finalising its biennial transparency report, which will indicate the progress in terms of quantification. Rwanda will submit its NDC 3.0 next year before COP30,” he said. Many developing countries note that finance and technical assistance are major barriers to setting and implementing more ambitious NDCs. To be able to implement NDCs, Rwanda has identified a funding gap of about $7 billion in order to meet its climate action targets under the Paris Agreement by 2030. The country plans to invest a total of $11.04 billion to reduce carbon emissions by 4.6 million tonnes with a significant portion of the reductions coming from the agriculture (49%), energy (34%), waste management (14%), and industrial (3%) sectors. ALSO READ: Key sectors that will take lion’s share in Rwanda's climate financing This gap was revealed during the recent Kigali Climate Talks where stakeholders gathered to discuss Rwanda’s efforts to update its NDCs. Developed countries, the world’s largest emitters historically, had a responsibility to “make the deepest reductions of emissions while providing substantially more finance to help developing countries accelerate climate action.” To remain on track for reaching net zero by the middle of the century, IPCC has established that emissions must be reduced by 43 per cent from 2019 until 2030 to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, full implementation of all current NDCs put the world on track for just a 5.3 per centreduction according to Simon Retallack, Director of Net Zero Intelligence Unit at The Carbon Trust, which provides insights to accelerate global progress towards net zero. This significant gap must be closed in the new NDCs that will be presented ahead of COP30. The UN Development Programme has launched its Climate Promise 2025 programme to provide capacity building-support for NDCs. However, the momentum that COP29 is able to generate on NDCs is linked inextricably to the outcome of the negotiations on climate finance. If COP29 does not deliver a strong new climate finance goal that enhances trust, capacity and resilience globally, it is unlikely that NDCs for 2035 will be insufficient to deliver on the Paris Agreement.
