Past editions
History
The Global NDC Conference, as we know it today, was preceded by two meetings on INDC preparation back in 2014 (in Berlin) and 2015 (in Brussels). Since then, the Global NDC Conference has become a space for coordination and a cornerstone in the global dialogue on climate action.
Each edition of the Global NDC Conference reflects the priorities and deepening understanding of how best to achieve the Paris Agreement’s objectives. Here’s how we have evolved with each edition:
Launching the dialogue for delivering climate goals
2-6 May 2017, Berlin
Our inaugural conference laid the groundwork for integrating NDCs into national development plans and policies, aligning with the first round of NDCs submitted by countries under the Paris Agreement.
More than 250 participants from 80 countries and several international organisations shared their perspectives and experiences in the fields of integrated governance, financing, and transparency for delivering climate goals. They identified gaps and opportunities for support; explored concrete opportunities for countries to progress low carbon resilient development through implementation of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs); build peer-networks, and engage with private sector to explore further action.
Key messages in 2017 included:
- For climate actions to result in tangible development benefits, countries need to reconfigure their governance systems to foster an inclusive, integrated approach to low carbon development.
- The Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) is the backbone of the Paris Agreement. It builds trust, enables tracking of NDC implementation and informs the global stock take on reaching the long-term goal.
- Attracting investment in support of NDC ambitions is a multidimensional challenge in which the public sector plays a key role through policy, regulatory and financial incentives and engineering which enable public and private investment in low-carbon infrastructure and climate and resilient development.
Learn more about the conference’s key findings in 2017 and check out the Global NDC Conference Report 2017.
Inspiring action and enabling change
12-14 June 2019, Berlin
Building on the foundation established in 2017, the 2019 conference focused on practical aspects of NDC implementation. The conference highlighted the importance of cross-sectoral approaches, innovative financing mechanisms, and robust capacity building. Participants shared cutting-edge solutions and explored ways to integrate these into their national contexts.
The Global NDC Conference 2019 convened 390 participants coming from 80 countries—working in government, development cooperation agencies, businesses, science, and civil society—to discuss the technical aspects of NDC implementation. More than 40 breakout sessions provided practice-oriented discussions and new insights on NDC implementation and updating, based on in-country examples and tools that have the potential to be scaled up.
Conference discussions were clustered around the themes of transparency, integrated governance, and finance—including cross cutting topics such as gender and social inclusion, leadership, and private sector engagement. While in technical rather than political nature, key messages in 2019 included:
- The science from the IPCC is clear: to limit temperature increase to 1.5°C and achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, emissions must peak well before 2030 and reach net zero by 2050. To do so, leaders must adopt a long-term vision for phasing out emissions by 2050 and, on that basis, set mid-term targets, for which NDCs provide a main avenue.
- Climate action should be designed to meet different people’s different needs. Women, indigenous people, ethnic minorities, and other socially excluded groups are powerful agents of change and already play important roles in core sectors affected by climate change (such as energy, agriculture, water, forestry).
- In tackling climate change, everyone is a stakeholder, and everyone is qualified to lead and speak out for higher climate ambition. To enable NDC implementation and raised ambition, we need a form of leadership that is more systemic, distributed, collaborative, reflective and in touch with the needs of the world around us.
- Committed international public finance is insufficient to meet the scale of the need. Private financial flows to climate adaptation and mitigation activities must increase many times over. Diverse private sector actors play a key role in delivering the Paris goals. They can contribute expertise, entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership to this end.
- Transparency enables enhanced ambition and transformational change, and development of long-term strategies towards net zero greenhouse gas emission economies. With the adoption of the Katowice rulebook, most rules are clear. Now is the time to implement them. The joint task is to translate the rules for decision-makers in national ministries such as planning and finance, for donors and for international implementing organisations.
- All finance impacts climate change and all finance must be aligned with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Too often fiscal policies pull against climate protection. All national and international spending and all infrastructure investments need to be aligned with climate and with sustainable development objectives to avoid a carbon lock-in. International climate finance remains essential, and should be predictable and accessible for developing countries, not only at national level but also at the local level.
Learn more about the conference’s key findings in 2019 and check out the Global NDC Conference 2019 Synthesis Paper.
Leading ambitious climate policy and action
31 May-2 June 2023, Berlin
As countries prepared for the first Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement, the 2023 edition emphasized the need to elevate climate ambition and learn from previous NDC cycles. Our aim was to inspire practitioners and policy makers to lead and contribute to processes and coordination that enable just, feasible and financeable NDCs.
More than 330 participants, all experts in NDC coordination and implementation, coming from over 50 countries, and from different backgrounds, gathered to discuss and share about their experience in aligning policies, mobilising finance, and raising ambition.
Key messages included:
- The number and quality of NDCs is evident but can they keep the pace? NDCs have become mature, data-driven, increasingly sophisticated, and wide-ranging. However, NDCs are in danger of being outpaced by climate change impacts if key bottlenecks, such as climate finance and delayed implementation, continue to fall short.
- The quality of NDCs is as important as the targets they include. A good NDC aligns national, sectoral, and local strategies at an overarching level and breaks them down into specific activities. Making them realistic and transparent, as well as fostering ownership by different stakeholders has proven to be critical for achieving better NDCs.
- Closing implementation and finance gaps is just as important as raising ambition. As public funding alone will not cover the global need for investment in climate action, accelerating the effective implementation of NDCs requires mobilising private climate finance.
- Strong political leadership is key to bringing everyone onboard for NDC design and implementation. A clear, reliable, and forward-looking political framework is a way to ensure the global, social, and ecological transformation.
- The more realistic NDC implementation is, the more buy in. The more we implement, the more we can raise ambition. Only when NDC implementation plans materialise and are tracked can relevant stakeholders and the international climate community know what works well and, consequently, tackle what hinders effective climate action in their own contexts.
Learn more about the conference’s outcomes here.
The complete photo album of the Global NDC Conference 2023 is available at the NDC Partnership’s Flickr!