All eyes were on the world’s largest polluters before a 10 February deadline for submitting national climate plans, but observers say the majority of countries are withholding announcing their updated targets in light of a “volatile geopolitical situation”.
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In Asia, the re-election of Donald Trump to the White House and a nascent trade war that is brewing between China and the West could have affected the timeline of Beijing’s submission of its 2035 climate targets, or what are known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.
There is also talk that India does not plan to submit its updated NDCs to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat for several more months. A key sticking point for Delhi is the failure of developed nations to meet its demands for more financial aid at the last COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan.
“China’s decision to not submit its NDCs now can be explained by its desire to wait until the global landscape becomes more clear,” said Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at American think tank Asia Society Policy Institute. “If one treats the NDCs as seriously as a plan that carries profound implications for a country’s transition, then it is natural to allow some time and see how the global political and economic orders will be reshaped in the coming months by the new United States administration.”
“China is not an exception. The majority of the world’s nations are holding back their NDC announcements,” said Li. “The hope is that more time will lead to better quality.”
Only 13 parties to the Paris Agreement have submitted their Nationally Determined Contributions by 10 February. Image: Eco-Business; Source: UNFCCC
As of 10 February, 13 of the 195 parties signed up to the landmark Paris treaty have published their NDCs; China and India, as well as the European Union have not yet submitted their plans.
Last week, UN climate chief Simon Stiell took a pragmatic approach and said “taking more time to ensure the plans are first-rate makes sense” even as he urged countries to submit them latest by September, for the NDCs to be included in the UN’s next assessment of climate action ahead of COP30 in Brazil.
At a press conference on Monday, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun confirmed that it is working to set the new NDCs “in accordance with the Paris Agreement and the requirements of the first Global Stocktake”.
“We will uphold a proactive and responsible attitude, take into consideration our domestic conditions, capability and stage of development, and inform the UNFCCC secretariat of China’s 2035 NDCs this year, in due course,” he said.
Will the first Global Stocktake feature in Asia’s NDCs?
American president Donald Trump’s return to power has significantly weakened a global movement anchored on environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles. Observers say Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement will impact COP30 talks in November, and the delayed NDCs are a sign of how countries around the world are taking a wary stance given geopolitical uncertainties.
In 2024, China – the world’s top carbon emitter – saw its emissions growth slow compared to 2023. Li said that he hopes this will lead to an emissions peak this year. “If that could happen, China will have the next decade, between 2025 to 2035, to embark on rapid decarbonisation,” he said, adding that an emissions reduction of 30 per cent this decade will put the country in line with the Paris accord’s 1.5°C warming limit.
Li highlighted that a third of China’s growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023 came from the low carbon sector, and China’s ambition to cut emissions could boost economic growth that has slowed in the past year.
Melissa Low, climate policy observer and research fellow at the Centre for Nature-based Climate Solution (CNCS) at the National University of Singapore, said it would be significant to track if outcomes from the first Global Stocktake – completed in 2023 and a key mechanism under the Paris Agreement – will inform the NDC updates.
Under the stocktake, parties to the Paris accord need to assess progress towards achieving their climate goals. Low said the “course-correction” exercise is important, but observed that discussions on the outcomes of the Global Stocktake had “lost momentum” at Baku last year and were overshadowed by the COP’s summit focus on climate finance.
She noted that Singapore – the only Asian country to have put in its NDC – has its 2035 targets informed by the stocktake, an effort that is likely underpinned by how the city-state’s chief negotiator for climate change Joseph Teo co-facilitated the global exercise. “The success of the Global Stocktake and whether it is taken seriously in the next round is dependent on how countries see it, and they should try to incorporate the outcomes in their NDCs since there is still time. If they don’t care about the outcomes of the first stocktake, then why would they care about the subsequent second and third ones?” said Low.
The next Global Stocktake will be in 2028, and India’s prime minister Narendra Modi has put in a pitch for the country to host the UN-sponsored COP summit.
Falling short
On submission timelines, observers say they trust that China and India will update their NDCs at some point this year. Low said that the mandate of the Paris Agreement Implementation and Compliance Committee is not to be punitive and adversarial, and does not include “naming and shaming” when deadlines are not met.
Past NDC submission exercises when climate pledges were updated in 2015 and 2020 also did not come with strict and widely-publicised deadlines, so countries might not be used to “being held to a higher standard” like they have this time, said Low.
For India, what complicates its climate target-setting is its attempt to protest how rich countries are not doing enough to raise funding for developing economies. In a recent Bloomberg report, the media outlet quotes insiders saying that the India government does not plan to submit an updated version of its NDCs for several more months with confidential talks ongoing.
It is also reconsidering its targets for combating carbon emissions and potentially setting more modest goals due to insufficient financial support. Rich nations failed to meet India’s demands for more financial aid at last year’s COP29 summit. Indian negotiator Chandni Raina had then taken umbrage at a final finance pledge of US$300 billion – short of the trillions developing nations say they need to cope with global warming – and described the sum as “paltry”.
Bill Hare, chief executive officer of Berlin-based climate science institute Climate Analytics, said international support is required for India to demonstrate the highest level of ambition. “The country has a lot to gain from moving away from fossil fuels – it is experiencing severe climate impacts – but there will be high transition costs which India should not bear alone.”
Hare observed that there were already signs at Baku that China is beginning to move into a leadership position on climate governance, and hence the time has come for China to step up its ambition. “The leadership needs to come in the form of a strong NDC commitment,” he said.
According to an analysis of NDCs submitted so far by science monitoring platform Climate Action Tracker (CAT), out of the 13 NDCs, only the United Kingdom’s is 1.5°C-aligned. It said that the rest have 2035 targets that “fall way short” of what is needed to keep to the global warming limit.
Singapore maps ‘steep’ downward emissions trajectory
Hare described Singapore’s commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to between 45 million and 50 million tonnes (Mt) by 2035, down from around 60 Mt in 2030 with the use of carbon credits – the first time the country has planned and pledged a reduction in emissions – as “an improvement”.
He said the range target also falls below CAT’s own 2035 projections for the city-state, which indicates that Singapore is “driving action”, although further initiatives will be needed to turn the new ambition into reality. Deeper reductions are also needed to close a significant gap between Singapore’s 2035 targets and CAT’s modelled domestic pathways for 1.5°C alignment, and the country could achieve this by importing renewable electricity and advancing its own energy efficiency, Hare said.
“Singapore’s small size is acknowledged as a challenge for transitioning to renewables, but more can be done.”
The updated NDC with its lower band of 45 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2eq) puts Singapore on a linear track to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, in line with international expectations, said the National Climate Change Secretariat (NCCS) in a statement on February 10. Singapore’s total emissions footprint in 2022 was 58.59 MtCO2eq. The republic contributes about 0.1 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
CNCS’s Low said Singapore might have seen slight dips in its emissions, for example during the Covid-19 pandemic, but it has never been “on such a sharp decline”, as mapped in the NDCs for 2035. The range targets indicate uncertainty, and success in implementing the targets will depend on a few factors, said Low, including whether Singapore can implement low-carbon technologies and if the memorandums of understanding (MOUs) that it has signed on collaboration for carbon credits will come to fruition in the next decade.
“A key driver will be international cooperation, whether it is in building carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) capabilities or mobilising carbon credits. Cross-border electricity trade will also move the needle, but for neighbours who sell clean energy to us, there is also an opportunity cost that they need to consider,” she said.
International criticism of its climate ambitions might also have pushed Singapore to do more, as it brands itself as a regional leader that wants to pursue green growth, said Low. Singapore’s climate targets were previously categorised as “highly insufficient”, according to CAT analysis. These findings last August prompted a response from environment minister Grace Fu who said CAT’s rating methodology does not reflect the circumstances of small, densely-populated and alternative energy-disadvantaged countries like Singapore.
Low also mentioned a public consultation exercise that saw the majority of climate-conscious Singaporeans saying they want to see more ambitious action from the government. The republic’s next general election is due in November this year too.
“I wonder whether the youth vote factors into [how Singapore has set these targets]. The Singapore government has all these strategic decisions to make. It needs to consider trade-offs but also the aspirations of younger citizens,” she said.
