About This Opportunity
Leveraging subnational actions and supporting investment can unlock new routes to finance and implementation, furthering the achievement of national goals. Ensuring a solid relationship between subnational and national level action also supports policy coherence vertically across levels of government and horizontally by sector, supporting successful implementation. The CHAMP initiative, launched at COP28, may be a key driver for greater cooperation on climate action in the future. These efforts will require broad and consistent stakeholder engagement. Many cities, regional, and local governments have already committed to ambitious mitigation targets through organizations or alliances such as ICLEI, C40 and GCoM. Countries may also wish to incorporate sub-national ambition into their national NDC target to reflect the highest possible ambition or support local governments by localizing NDC targets. More details on engagement of subnational actors is provided under “Opportunity: Engaging Local and Regional Governments”. See also “Opportunity: Enhancing and Integrating Data Across Government” for more information on data considerations.
Countries may also wish to set sector-specific targets that directly feed into their overall national target. This may involve setting new sector targets, enhancing existing ones by adding subsectors, or increasing ambition in already-covered ones.
The following strategies could help to implement this Opportunity:
Adding or enhancing sector-specific targets:
Such targets may be GHG emissions targets or non-GHG targets such as waste reduction, the number of electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energy capacity, etc.). Still, in such cases, it is helpful to use specific metrics. When framing sectoral targets and developing indicators for tracking progress, it is also beneficial to consider whether targets/metrics can be easily tracked with available data. Data considerations for the NDC are discussed in greater detail under “Route: Technically Sound and Transparent Documents.” To support policy coherence, aligning sector-specific targets in the NDC with existing sector plans and strategies can be helpful. This supports implementation by ensuring a common goal. The first GST also provides a suite of sectoral “global efforts” that a country could use to inspire new sector-specific targets – see “Opportunity: Exploring Sector-Specific Opportunities” for more information on reflecting the GST global efforts and outcomes in the NDC as a mechanism to raise ambition in different sectors, as well as a range of sector-specific further resources to support high ambition in all sectors.
Aligning national targets with sub-national targets and/or localizing NDC targets at the sub-national level:
Many cities and local authorities have declared climate emergencies and set ambitious mitigation targets. Reflecting sub-national ambition in national-level targets can help ensure the NDC represents the highest possible ambition. Cities often contribute significantly to national emissions, so incorporating sub-national targets ensures common mitigation goals across government levels. As hubs of technology and infrastructure, and therefore, innovation, and as such, cities are crucial to implementation efforts. Aligning national and subnational climate action requires firm and consistent multi-level governance and coordination mechanisms. See “Opportunity: Engaging Local and Regional Governments” for more information on subnational stakeholder engagement and “Opportunity: Enhancing and Integrating Data Across Government” for more information on data considerations. Refer also to Guidance: “Enhancing Nationally Determined Contributions through Urban Climate Action” (UN Habitat).
Stakeholder engagement:
Including all levels of government and all sector stakeholders, including the private sector (see “Opportunity: Leveraging the Private Sector”), in the NDC development process can help ensure that NDC targets are implementable. This is discussed in detail under “Route: Mobilizes All-of-Government and All-of-Society.”
Country Examples
Kenya‘s NDC includes sector-specific targets for increasing the share of renewable energy in its energy mix and promoting energy efficiency. These targets align with existing sectoral plans and strategies, such as the National Renewable Energy Policy, which has supported mainstreaming climate considerations into development planning. (Source: “Kenya’s Updated Nationally Determined Contribution”, UNFCCC)
Jordan has aligned national targets with sub-national targets. The country’s NDC includes a section on “Mainstreaming NDCs in National and Local Planning,” which details several subnational plans and strategies aligned with national ambition. Jordan’s Government is further “integrating its NDC into national and subnational policy through the NDC Action Plan”, working with subnational actors to build capacity to develop mitigation and adaptation plans. For instance, the “Amman Climate Action Plan” (CAP), launched by the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) and the Ministry of Environment in June 2019, establishes a 2050 vision for the country’s capital with net-zero emissions targets and a pathway to decarbonize electricity, improve energy efficiency in buildings, scale sustainable transport mobility, reduce waste, and develop green infrastructure in Jordan’s largest city. (Source: “Updated submission of Jordan’s 1st Nationally Determined Contribution”, UNFCCC)
Morocco utilizes sectoral breakdowns to disaggregate its NDC targets. The country sets specific emission reduction goals for each of the seven critical sectors included in their NDC, including energy production, waste, and industry. For the first time, the mitigation scenario in the 2021 NDC update includes the phosphates and cement subsectors. They collaborated with entities like the National Climate Change and Biodiversity Commission to enhance these sectoral targets across government levels. This facilitated a multi-stakeholder approach where varying sectors provided input, ensuring targets were technically robust, considered diverse needs, and had broader government buy-in for implementation. (Source: “Morocco Submits Enhanced NDC, Raising Ambition to 45.5 Percent by 2030”, the NDC Partnership)
Further Resources
The following guidance and tools can further support sectoral and subnational targets in NDCs.
Urban Climate Action – The Urban Content of the NDCs: Global Review 2022 (UN-HABITAT, 2022)
This report explores the linkages between the NDCs and urban issues. It presents the analysis results, including illustrative country approaches for effective multi-level governance, representing Parties’ efforts in integrating national climate policies with urban climate action.
Enhancing Nationally Determined Contributions through Urban Climate Action (UN-HABITAT, 2020)
This guide focuses on the critical role of urban areas in climate action, offering strategies for integrating urban climate action into NDCs. It emphasizes the importance of multi-level governance, stakeholder engagement, and leveraging urban areas for climate mitigation and adaptation, aiming to enhance the ambition and implementation of NDCs through urban strategies.
The Multilevel Climate Action Playbook for Local and Regional Governments (GCoM, 2021)
This resource seeks to support the development of enabling environments that can integrate the ambition and action of local and regional governments into national plans. Such an environment can also help produce ‘Regional and Local Contributions’ (RLCs), which are climate plans designed to feed into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and strengthen their ambition.
Localising NDCs with inspiration from the 2030 Agenda – Policy Brief (GIZ, 2021)
This policy brief examines why and how NDCs can and should be localized. It also examines what lessons the process of localizing SDGs offers for localizing NDCs.
The Paris Agreement’s Enhanced Transparency Framework: The critical role of non-Party stakeholder data to effectively track progress (CDP, 2023)
This document analyzes the importance of non-party stakeholder data and evidence in the ETF. It discusses including non-party stakeholder data in Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs), provides tools supporting NPS data collection for BTRs, and offers recommendations for the next steps.
Science-Based Climate Targets: A guide for cities (Science-based Targets Network, 2020)
This guide is designed to help cities understand and adopt a science-based climate target. It explains different methodologies for setting an interim science-based target for 2030 and a net-zero target for 2050.
IPCC AR6 WGIII: Mitigation of Climate Change (IPCC, 2023)
This report provides the latest international science on climate change mitigation, including information on sector-specific mitigation options.
Briefing Note: Private Sector Engagement (FAO and UNDP, 2022)
This brief explains the relevance of private sector engagement to the Support Programme on Scaling up Climate Ambition on Land Use and Agriculture through NDCs and National Adaptation Plans (SCALA), outlines proposed interventions to address this topic in the SCALA country work plans and summarizes useful resources as well as support available from the global team.
Walking the Walk: Reducing Methane Emissions from Agrifood Systems (IFAD, 2024)
This publication highlights the urgent need to mitigate methane emissions from agrifood systems. It showcases successful projects and emphasizes best practices, such as optimized livestock feed, climate-smart rice cultivation and nature-based solutions for waste reduction. Additionally, it underscores the importance of integrating methane mitigation strategies into national policies
Small-Scale Biogas for Clean Cooking: A Cost-Effective Technology to Tackle Climate Change and Achieve SDGs (SDSN, 2023)
Small-scale biogas production can serve as a versatile and cost-effective solution to transition from traditional cooking fuels, tackling issues like deforestation and indoor pollution. Biogas not only serves cooking needs, but also offers benefits like improved agricultural productivity and circular economy possibilities. There are existing barriers, such as affordability and lack of systematic exploration of biogas potential, but there are also proven ways to overcome them. This brief presents ten recommendations to facilitate the integration of biogas solutions into clean cooking strategies, emphasizing policy frameworks, funding mechanisms, technology implementation, and stakeholder engagement to achieve universal clean cooking access by 2030 and promote sustainable rural development.
How This Links to Other Routes
Including sectoral and/or subnational targets in national-level NDCs has implications across several other Routes. Some critical linkages include the following. Navigate to these to read more:
Route: Mobilizes All-Of-Government and All-Of-Society
Including sectoral and/or subnational targets in the national NDC, targets can be strengthened through engagement and ownership by all stakeholders and levels of government.
Route: Technology and Capacity-Building as Needs and Enablers
Setting sectoral targets benefits from consideration of the technology needs for mitigation in each sector. This helps ensure targets are more implementable.
Route: Unlocks Finance
Leveraging sectoral and subnational ambition can provide routes to new finance opportunities.
Route: Technically Sound and Transparent Documents
Transparency processes and data considerations are important when including subnational or sectoral targets in NDCs or localizing NDC targets.
Additional Opportunities
The NDC 3.0 Navigator presents eight examples of Opportunities countries can pursue to enhance NDC ambition through alignment with the Paris Agreement temperature goal.
