"We are far from the trillions we need for all countries to meet ambitious NDC targets. The NDC working group works with donors, governments, and the private sector to identify and drive opportunities to create enabling environments for investment in NDCs, raise awareness regarding blended finance possibilities, and prepare investment-ready NDC pipelines for private sector investors."
Ben Bartle, Working Group Co-Chair
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are countries’ material climate pledges of how they will contribute to lower their emissions, adapt to climate change and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
Trillions of investments are needed on a broader scale to achieve the objectives set in the NDCs and the private sector will contribute with the majority of the total cost of funding the Paris Agreement. The delay of COP 26 has presented an opportunity to ensure that increased climate ambition is at the core of NDCs and people-centred economic recovery strategies. However, countries continue to face challenges in securing the financial resources needed to achieve their NDC targets.
To support the transition to low-emission and climate-resilient development, private sector resources must be mobilized to fill the gap caused by a lack of public investment. The adoption of the Paris Agreement provided a strong policy signal for private sector investment in climate finance.
However, questions remain such as: how will Article 6 be operationalised, and what’s the role of the private sector in advancing NDCs? How have countries aligned their NDCs with plans to rebuild economies battered by efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic? How have countries ensured NDCs are integrated into the whole of government and to other strategic planning processes within a country?
Countries have expressed interest in funding NDCs through Internationally Transferred Mitigation Outcomes (ITMOs), but how can the rulebook for article 6 ensure such funding can be targeted to finance NDCs? Article 6 of the Paris Agreement is a key entry point for private sector engagement by which countries can cooperate on implementing their NDCs as well as raising the ambition of these pledges for market-based climate change mitigation mechanisms, such as carbon markets and carbon trading.
The aim of this Working Group is to provide knowledge on how private actors can finance and contribute in transforming countries’ NDCs into tangible actions that lead to successful roll-out of Article 6 mechanisms by identifying conditional targets – which they themselves can fund – to significantly increase current pledges. The NDC WG will drive demand for cost-effective, private sector driven market instruments, stimulated through Article 6 rules and regulations.
The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) working group is chaired by Ben Bartle and Sergi Cuadrat.
