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UN: Upcoming Regional Fora to enhance National Climate Action Plans

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Under the legally binding Paris Agreement, Member States of the United Nations (UN) are due in 2025 to update their Nationally-Determined Contributions as part of the global response to combat climate change and adapt to its intensifying impacts. Nationally-Determined Contributions (NDCs) serve as national climate action plans toward achieving the mitigation and adaptation targets enshrined in the Paris Agreement, which entered into force in 2016. NDCs are updated by Member States every five years, and each version should be more ambitious than the last, with the underlying objective of building more resilient societies.

In preparation for this next round of NDC updates the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), together with the United Nations Development Programme and NDC Partnership, will conduct Regional Fora from August to October 2024. Organised in collaboration with the Secretariat for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, these Fora will encourage government ministries to engage on innovative financing models, transformative change through ambitious sectoral targets, and co-benefits between climate action and other international commitments on nature, pollution, and sustainable development.

The Regional Fora will be closed-door events, scheduled for the following dates:

  • Regional Forum for the Pacific, from 12 to 16 August 2024 hosted by the government of Samoa in Apia;
  • Regional Forum for Latin America and the Caribbean, from 27 to 29 August 2024 hosted by the government of Colombia in Bogota;
  • Regional Forum for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, from 3 to 5 September, hosted by the government of Türkiye in Istanbul;
  • Regional Forum for the Middle East and North Africa, from 23 to 25 September 2024 hosted by the government of Tunisia in Tunis;
  • Regional Forum for Asia, from 30 September to 2 October in Bangkok, Thailand; and
  • Regional Forum for Africa, from 7 to 9 October 2024 hosted by the government of Rwanda in Kigali.

Following the first Global Stocktake in December 2023 to assess the Paris Agreement’s state of progress, the organising bodies have highlighted that the present NDC enhancement cycle is pivotal in this decade of action to 2030. The UNEP gap analysis reports have concluded that current NDCs put the world on track for an overshoot in global temperature rising to 2.5-2.9°C, well beyond the safe 1.5°C target, and the current adaptation finance gap is US$194-366 billion per year.

  • South Africa ratified the Paris Agreement in November 2016. Its current NDC is available here.
  • See an advisory note on the UNEP Adaptation Gap Report here.

This advisory note was prepared by ALT Advisory’s Climate Justice & Sustainability Practice (CJS). With an emphasis on implementation, monitoring, and impact reporting, CJS aims to build climate-resilience through digital transformation and climate and environmental justice. Find out more here.

Please note: The information contained in this note is for general guidance on matters of interest, and does not constitute legal advice. For any enquiries, please contact us at [email protected].

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