Super pollutants and air quality NDC Tracking

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) tracks the inclusion and progress of super pollutants and air quality considerations in countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), with the CCAC NDC Database breaking down how this information is included in NDCs.

This data is used as an indicator of progress and ambition on non-CO2 emissions, and supports analytical work carried out by the CCAC’s Scientific community.

About the CCAC NDC Database

The CCAC NDC Tracking Database breaks down the short-lived climate pollutant and air pollution-related content of climate mitigation pledges and measures in Nationally Determined Contributions reported to the UNFCCC.

In 2025, ahead of countries submitting their NDC 3.0/Second NDC the database has been updated to more explicitly track the inclusion of nitrous oxide (N2O) and improve tracking of air quality content.

All content for this database is taken from official country NDCs submitted to the UNFCCC and recorded in the public NDC Registry maintained by the UNFCCC Secretariat. This database is maintained by the CCAC Secretariat and was developed with support and input from CCAC Partners including the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Clean Air Task Force (CATF), Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development (IGSD), World Resources Institute (WRI), Global Methane Hub (GMH) and the Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA).

While this database and methodology is not yet publicly available, it will be shared with interested partners upon request.

NDC Statistics

Statistics related to SLCP/Super Pollutant inclusion in a countries NDC mainly look at one of three things:

Inclusion in overall mitigation target: A country is considered to have included a pollutant in its overall mitigation target if it is listed in the NDC’s Scope & Transparency. However, it has been highlighted that the first NDCs submitted in and before 2016 are more difficult to analyse and compare in terms of the mitigation ambition (Pauw et al. 2018).
Measures: A country is considered to have included measures for a particular pollutant when the NDC identifies at least one measure for that particular NDC. Measures are based on Malley et al. (2019) and the EDGAR emissions database (for hydrofluorocarbons, black carbon, nitrous oxide and tropospheric ozone precursors, and for methane the targeted measures identified by the Global Methane Assessment (2021). Note that these measures do not need to mention the pollutant by name.
Quantified target or assessment of mitigation potential: Where a country includes either a quantitative mitigation target for a specified pollutant or includes a quantitative assessment of the pollutants mitigation potential of a particular measure or package of measures identified in the NDC.

Latest NDC: the latest submission for a given country or set of countries (e.g. in a region or CCAC partners). When comparing between years, an NDC is included in the statistic for a given year, if it is the latest NDC as of December 31 of that year. If a country has released multiple updates in that year, only the latest is included.

Statistics are often framed as the number or percentage of countries Party to the Paris Agreement (194), rather than NDCs. The EU NDC is counted as a separate NDC for each of the EU 27 countries.

Note that statistics are based on the content of the NDC only, and do not reflect the detail of any policies or strategies mentioned in the NDC. Where an NDC is an update (e.g. an updated first NDC), it may be considered to be an addendum to the previous update unless otherwise mentioned.