Attachments
Anika Terton, Jeffrey Qi, Georgia Exell
Introduction
Under the Paris Agreement, countries are expected to submit new or updated nationally determined contributions (NDCs) in early 2025. This submission gives countries a chance to provide new information on their efforts to ramp up ambitions for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions and strengthening their resilience to climate change. In their NDCs, countries have the option of including an adaptation component to communicate their priorities, goals, and targets for climate change adaptation, as well as their implementation and support needs. According to the most recent United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) NDC synthesis report, since the latest NDC update, 81% of countries have included an adaptation component in their NDC (UNFCCC, 2024a). For developing countries that are currently formulating or implementing their national adaptation plans (NAPs), the 2025 NDC update presents a strategic opportunity to communicate their key adaptation priorities and strengthen the alignment between these two complementary processes.
As of October 21, 2024, 57 countries have submitted multisectoral NAP documents to the UNFCCC, and more than 140 developing countries have initiated the NAP process (UNFCCC, 2024b).1 The NAP process was established in 2010 under the Cancun Agreements as a means for countries to mainstream adaptation into development planning and budgeting and “identify and address their medium- and long-term priorities for adapting to climate change” (Hammill et al., 2019; Least Developed Countries Expert Group, 2012). The NAP process provides a key source of information on domestic adaptation planning and implementation to be considered in the NDC update. By including an adaptation component in their NDC and aligning it with the NAP process, countries can enhance the quality of the adaptation information in NDCs and global climate assessments while raising the profile of adaptation.
In anticipation of the 2025 NDC update, this briefing note synthesizes a review of countries that have submitted an NDC and a NAP and assesses the extent of alignment of the adaptation-related information presented in these documents. Targeted at national-level policy-makers—especially NAP teams who are responsible for a country’s national adaptation planning and implementation—this briefing note emphasizes the NDC update in 2025 as an important opportunity to further enhance alignment between the NAP process and NDC provide practical steps, guiding questions, and examples of good practice from countries on how to realize these complementary linkages for more effective, inclusive adaptation. This builds on previous work undertaken by the NAP Global Network, which included a continuum for reviewing the degree of alignment between different policy processes, such as those related to NAPs and NDCs (Dazé et al., 2018; Terton et al., 2019).