NDCs We Want

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Zimbabwe

A new world is coming

NDCsWeWant

Under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, each country has to regularly develop national plans of action to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and deal with the impacts of the climate crisis. These are called nationally determined contributions (NDCs).
Since 2018, WWF has offered governments guidance, evaluation on developing and actioning NDCsWeWant. This page showcases WWF's tools and outputs from our ongoing work on national climate plans, including our latest support for the development of new NDCs (so called 'NDCs 3.0') which countries should publish well ahead of the UNFCCC COP30 in 2025.

NDC checklist

WWF's NDCsWeWant Checklist provides a benchmark to measure improvements from one NDC to the next. This increases transparency on how countries respond to a core principle of the Paris Agreement:

Each successive nationally determined contribution must have stronger climate ambition and action than the previous one, in accordance with their national circumstances.

WWF's first edition of the NDCsWeWant Checklist, was used to assess selected national climate plans submitted before the end of 2021.

In June 2024, WWF published an updated NDCsWeWant Checklist accommodating the outcome of UNFCCC COP29 Global Stocktake. This provides the tool for assessing new NDCs submitted by 2025, (so called 'NDCs 3.0').

Read the first edition NDCsWeWant Checklist here.
Read the first edition of WWF's NDCsWeWant Assessments here.

Download the latest Checklist

What is an NDC?

The 195 countries that have signed the global Paris Agreement climate treaty must update their plans for preventing dangerous climate change every five years.

Each country does this by updating their national climate plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (or NDCs). The next deadline for countries to do this is 2025, when countries must set out their climate action plans for the period 2025 -2035.

At a minimum these plans should show:

How much the country will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions - which is commonly referred to as ‘climate targets.’
How the country plans to meet these goals, including what activities they will do. This can range from shifting to electric vehicles and by shifting energy systems away from fossil fuels and towards 100% renewable energy, for example.

If we add up what countries have said they will do to address the climate crisis, it will not be enough to keep temperatures to a level safe for people and nature. This is why it is so vital for that governments improve their own climate planning by submitting plans aligned to the 1.5°C temperature goal set out in the Paris Agreement.

The WWF NDCsWeWant Checklist provides what WWF considers ‘good practice’ for developing these national climate plans.

"Done right, national climate plans double as national investment plans, and reinforce national development plans. They can catapult sustainable development [by] connecting billions [of people] to clean power, boosting health, creating clean jobs, and advancing.”

“[These] NDCs are the critical vehicle to get countries on that [sustainable development] path. These targets must be supported by credible plans, concrete policies, and details in financing needs, to clean-up major emitting sectors – particularly energy.

António Guterres / UN Secretary General

NDC Assessments

Explore the map below to access our NDCsWeWant Assessments done up to the end of 2021.

As countries create new and revised NDCs ahead of 2025, WWF will review them against the assessments done using our first edition NDCsWeWant Checklist. Click on the pins to see the assessments.