What Are NDCs? NDC 3.0 Explained Before COP31

Every big UN climate summit comes back to three letters: NDC. Ahead of COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, in November 2026, governments are judged on their latest national climate plans, known as NDC 3.0. Here is what an NDC is, what the new round contains, and why it matters for whether the world can limit warming.

What is an NDC?

A nationally determined contribution is a country’s pledge to cut emissions and adapt to climate change. Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, every country decides its own targets (that is the “nationally determined” part) but must submit a new, more ambitious plan every five years. NDCs typically include an emissions target for a future year, sector plans for energy, transport, buildings, farming and forests, adaptation priorities, and, for many developing countries, what they could achieve with international finance.

What is NDC 3.0?

The first NDCs came in 2015–16, the second round around 2020–21, and the third, nicknamed NDC 3.0, from 2025, with targets for 2035. They were the first plans written after the Global Stocktake, the Paris Agreement’s first big check-up, which concluded in 2023 that the world was far off track. That makes NDC 3.0 the clearest test yet of whether countries are responding to the science.

What do the new plans show?

More than 140 countries had submitted NDC 3.0 plans by mid-2026. They are more detailed than earlier rounds: UN-Habitat found that most now include well-developed plans for cities, up sharply from the previous cycle, and more include health, adaptation and nature. But independent analysts, including the Climate Policy Initiative, judge the overall level of ambition to be insufficient for the Paris goals. In other words, the plans are better written, but they do not yet add up to the emissions cuts the science calls for.

Why NDCs matter for COP31

COP31 is billed as an implementation summit. The questions on the table are how to close the gap between pledges and what is needed, how to fund the plans of developing countries, and how to turn targets into real policy. Watch for the UN’s synthesis of all NDCs, which adds up their combined effect, and for whether major emitters strengthen their targets. Our COP31 Antalya guide covers the dates and the main negotiations.

An NDC is a promise. The gap between all the promises and the science is the real measure of a climate summit.

NDCs and businesses

National targets become rules for companies: emissions reporting, energy standards and carbon pricing all flow from NDCs. That is one reason more businesses are measuring their footprint using the GHG Protocol and setting targets on the path to net zero.

Conditional vs unconditional targets

Many NDCs, especially from lower-income countries, contain two numbers. The unconditional target is what the country commits to with its own resources. The conditional target is a deeper cut it says it can reach if it receives international finance, technology or support. This is why climate finance is so central to every COP: a large share of the world’s potential emissions cuts is written into NDCs as conditional on money that has not yet arrived.

How countries are held to their NDCs

NDCs are not legally binding targets in the way a national law is, but the Paris Agreement does bind countries to process: they must submit plans, explain them, and report progress. Under the Enhanced Transparency Framework, countries submit Biennial Transparency Reports every two years with their emissions inventories and progress towards their NDC, which are then reviewed by experts. Every five years, the Global Stocktake adds up the collective effort and feeds into the next round of NDCs. The pressure is mostly political and reputational, but it is also increasingly legal: courts in several countries have ruled that governments must align national policy with their climate commitments.

How to read an NDC

When you read a country’s NDC, check four things: the base year and target year (a cut from 2005 is very different from a cut from 2019); whether the target covers all greenhouse gases and all sectors; whether it is an absolute cut or an intensity target that allows emissions to keep growing with the economy; and how much of it is conditional on finance. Those details decide whether a headline percentage is ambitious or not.