Nationally Determined Contributions

Introduction

A Nationally Determined Contribution, or NDC, is the climate action plan that each country submits to the United Nations. In it, a country sets out how it will cut the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, and how it will cope with the effects of a warming world. A strong NDC does three things: it sets clear targets, it explains the strategy and the systems that will track and verify progress, and it shows how the plan will be paid for. NDCs were agreed as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement at COP21.

The Paris Agreement asks every country to revisit and strengthen its NDC every five years. This is called the ratchet mechanism, and the idea is simple: each new round should be more ambitious than the last. At COP26 the Glasgow Climate Pact urged countries to come back with stronger plans, because there was still a large gap between the cuts scientists say are needed to keep warming close to 1.5°C and the cuts that governments had actually promised.

NDCs matter to all of us, because they shape the kind of future we live in. Built on careful research, they help countries move towards cleaner and more lasting forms of development, and they are a chance to rethink how a society produces and consumes. Many countries now link their NDCs to their national development plans and to the Sustainable Development Goals, and the best plans make room for women, young people and indigenous communities.

The case of India

Developing countries like India are especially exposed to climate change, because they already live with a wide range of climate variability. India's large population, its reliance on agriculture, its long coastline, and the Himalayan region and islands all add to that vulnerability. Any climate policy therefore has to weigh the effects on economic and social development, particularly when lifting people out of poverty is a top priority.

India faces a genuinely complex balancing act: a development agenda for a democracy of more than a billion people, large gaps in infrastructure, the pressures of fast urbanisation and industrialisation, and the need to keep growth sustainable, all at the same time.

India's first NDC: the eight goals

India's first NDC, submitted in 2015, was built around eight policies and programmes:

• Sustainable lifestyles: to promote a healthy and sustainable way of living, rooted in traditions of conservation and moderation.
• Cleaner economic development: to follow a cleaner, more climate-friendly path than the one taken by countries at similar stages of growth.
• Lower emissions intensity of GDP: to cut the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.
• More non-fossil electricity: to reach about 40 per cent of installed electric power capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030, with support from technology transfer and low-cost international finance, including the Green Climate Fund.
• A larger carbon sink: to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5 to 3 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent through extra forest and tree cover by 2030.
• Adaptation: to invest more in the sectors most exposed to climate change, such as agriculture, water resources, the Himalayan region, coastal areas, health and disaster management.
• Mobilising finance: to raise domestic funds and additional support from developed countries to pay for these mitigation and adaptation actions.
• Technology and capacity building: to build the skills, institutions and international partnerships needed to spread cutting-edge climate technology quickly.

COP26 Glasgow: the Panchamrit

At COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, India announced five fresh commitments, together known as the Panchamrit, meaning the five nectars:

• Raise non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030.
• Meet 50 per cent of the country's energy requirements from renewables by 2030.
• Reduce total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes between now and 2030.
• Reduce the carbon intensity of the economy by 45 per cent by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.
• Reach net zero by 2070. Net zero means the greenhouse gases a country still releases are balanced by an equal amount removed from the atmosphere, for example through forests.

Why it still matters

NDCs are not a promise made once and then forgotten. Because of the five-year ratchet, countries have to keep coming back with stronger plans, and 2025 was the year the world reached its third round of pledges.

In October 2025 the UN climate body published its 2025 NDC Synthesis Report, which pulled together 64 new national plans. Its message was mixed. For the first time, the plans it studied would actually bend global emissions downward, by roughly 10 per cent by 2035, rather than letting them keep rising. But that is still far short of the deep cuts needed to hold warming near 1.5°C. The UN climate chief, Simon Stiell, put it plainly: the progress is real, but action must be accelerated. These plans set the scene for COP30, the climate summit held in Belem, Brazil, in November 2025.

India moved too. In March 2026 it announced a new NDC for the years up to 2035. It aims to cut the emissions intensity of its GDP by 47 per cent by 2035, compared with 2005, up from the earlier goal of 33 to 35 per cent. It targets a 60 per cent share of non-fossil sources in installed electricity capacity by 2035, having already met its earlier non-fossil target years ahead of schedule. And it plans a carbon sink able to absorb up to 4.0 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Every one of these numbers is a step up from the pledges described above, which is exactly how the ratchet is meant to work.

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Sources

1. UNFCCC, 2025 NDC Synthesis Report
2. UN News, World enters new era of climate action but progress must accelerate, 28 October 2025
3. World Resources Institute, statement on India announces new 2035 climate commitment, March 2026

Key takeaways

• A Nationally Determined Contribution is the climate action plan each country submits to the United Nations under the Paris Agreement, detailing how it will cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change.
• A strong NDC does three things: sets clear targets, explains the strategy and tracking systems, and shows how the plan will be paid for.
• The ratchet mechanism requires countries to revisit and strengthen their NDC every five years, with each new round more ambitious than the last.
• India's first NDC in 2015 contained eight goals covering sustainable lifestyles, cleaner development, lower emissions intensity, non-fossil electricity, carbon sinks, adaptation, finance mobilization, and technology.
• India's 2026 NDC targets a 47% reduction in emissions intensity by 2035 and 60% non-fossil sources in electricity capacity.

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