UN reports progress on national climate pledges

The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) on Tuesday released its 2025 synthesis report on nationally determined contributions (NDCs), showing improved quality, credibility, and economic coverage.

Released ahead of COP30 in Brazil next month, the report covers national climate plans formally submitted in the NDC registry between January 1, 2024, and September 30, 2025.

A wind farm in Ji'an, Jiangxi Province, east China, September 9, 2025. /VCG

A wind farm in Ji'an, Jiangxi Province, east China, September 9, 2025. /VCG

The report shows new signs of real and growing progress in efforts to combat climate change through national initiatives supported by global cooperation, based on the 64 new NDCs submitted by 64 parties to the Paris Agreement, representing about 30 percent of total global emissions in 2019.

The report said that in their NDCs, parties are establishing new national climate goals and plans to reach them that vary in speed and scope from previous efforts.

It said that parties are bending their combined emission curve further downward, but still not quickly enough.

The whole-of-economy, whole-of-society approaches evident in NDCs highlight strong climate action as an increasingly essential pillar for ensuring economic stability, growth, jobs, health, energy security, and affordability, among other policy priorities, in countries.

"However, it remains clear that major acceleration is still needed in terms of delivering faster and deeper emission reductions and ensuring that the vast benefits of strong climate action reach all countries and peoples," the report said.

To give a broader view of global progress before COP30, the UNFCCC has performed additional calculations that include new NDCs or targets submitted or announced up to the report's publication, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general.

"They say that this wider picture shows global emissions clearly falling for the first time, by around 10 percent by 2035. The report underscores that while clear progress is evident, major acceleration is needed to deliver faster and deeper emission cuts, to keep the 1.5 (degrees Celsius) limit within reach," he said.

"Both the Secretary-General and the UNFCCC have noted that the science is very clear: it is entirely possible and essential to bring temperatures back down to 1.5 degrees, after temporary overshoot of that limit," said Dujarric.