Nationally Determined Contribution

The climate plan each Party to the Paris Agreement prepares, communicates and maintains, and submits to a public UNFCCC registry. It is nationally determined: the country chooses the target, its scope and its form, within common accounting and transparency rules and a requirement that each successive contribution represent a progression on the last. Parties communicate new or updated NDCs on a five-year cycle, and many combine an unconditional element with a conditional element dependent on support.

Why it matters in the room

The NDC is the unit of account for the whole regime. Transparency, finance, Article 6 and the Global Stocktake all exist to inform, support or track NDCs — so almost every other agenda item eventually resolves into a question about them.