CCAC NDC Watch: Latest on Non-CO₂ Pollutants in National Climate Plans - January 2025

by Chris Malley, Senior Research Fellow at SEI York - 31 January, 2025
This blog is part of a series tracking and analyzing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) as they are updated and released in the lead-up to COP30. Stay tuned for ongoing insights on how countries are integrating non-CO₂ pollutants, air quality, and public health benefits into their national climate commitments.
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Temperature records are being broken worldwide, and air pollution is now the second biggest risk factor for human health, contributing to over 8 million premature deaths per year. The importance of countries taking seriously the need to jointly reduce greenhouse gas, short-lived climate pollutant and air pollutant emissions has never been greater. This year, new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) containing upgraded climate change targets are required. Since the Paris Agreement was agreed upon in 2015, the Partners of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition have made strides in showing how SLCPs, air pollution and public health can be integrated into NDCs to enhance climate change mitigation ambition, emphasize the local air pollution and public health benefits of climate action to motivate faster action. 

The five-year cycle for updating NDCs presents an opportunity to go further. It allows countries with long track records of success in SLCP mitigation to highlight successes and strengthen priorities. Countries recognize that tackling Short-Lived Climate Pollutants offers a ‘multiple benefit’ approach to climate action that can set directions and establish priorities and milestones.

As 2025 progresses towards COP30 in Brazil, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition will be monitoring the submission of new NDCs and championing progress made on the inclusion of SLCPs, air pollution and public health benefits. In the last round of NDC updates, the number of countries, including SLCPs and air pollution benefits, more than doubled compared to the first NDCs submitted after the Paris Agreement was signed. Substantially more countries included specific targets to reduce SLCPs, and for the first time countries highlighted the health benefits from implementing its NDC, alongside GHG reductions. The number of specific mitigation actions that would tackle SLCPs included in NDCs to achieve GHG reduction targets also rose significantly. 

So far, seven countries have submitted updated NDCs ahead of COP30. Based on these submissions, early indications are that this round of NDCs could lead to a similar step-change in the inclusion of SLCPs within NDCs. 

Highlights from the submissions so far include COP30 hosts Brazil outlining a national mitigation objective that its NDC target will be achieved in part through the implementation of actions that will reduce non-CO2 GHGs, including methane and nitrous oxide, and that mitigation actions should not only reduce GHGs but also achieve other national priorities including a reduction in air pollution. The identification and prioritization of the mitigation actions under these principles will be key to ensuring they are achieved. 

A key advancement in these early NDC updates includes national GHG reduction targets being divided between sectors. Both the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland specified sectoral pathways to achieve their overall GHG targets. This allows us to understand better how SLCP mitigation can contribute to their climate change mitigation goals. For example, UAE commits to reduce GHG emissions from agriculture and waste by 39 and 37%, respectively as a contribution to achieving an overall goal of 47% reduction in GHG emissions vs 2019 levels. This will require methane emission reductions in these sectors. Methane emission reductions from oil and gas production are also a focus for the UAE. Its NDC highlights 23.8 bn USD invested by ADNOC to reduce GHG emissions from its oil and gas operations, including through methane reductions and zero routine flaring. 

Uruguay’s updated NDC is even clearer in describing the contribution SLCP emission reductions make to its climate change mitigation goals. Pollutant-specific emission limits are set out in its NDC for carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. This is an important development. Uruguay is one of the few countries globally that sets climate change mitigation targets individually for different greenhouse gases. Given the different impacts GHGs have on the climate on different timescales, this level of transparency in their target means the climate impact of Uruguay’s contribution can be more easily evaluated and that reductions in SLCPs like methane are not a substitute for the necessary, strong, ambitious action on GHGs. Uruguay also specifies sectoral targets. Almost two-thirds of GHG emissions in Uruguay come from livestock, and Uruguay committed to reducing methane and nitrous oxide emission intensity from meat production by 35% and 36%, respectively. The level of clarity in Uruguay’s NDC and specification of sectoral targets make for easier monitoring of progress on achieving their climate change goals. 

The United States of America committed to a 61-66% reduction in GHG emissions, which, according to its NDC, would lead to a 35% reduction in methane emissions. The USA’s NDC describes how the Inflation Reduction Act provided 1 bn USD for a methane emission reduction plan and how regulations such as oil and gas emission standards are helping to achieve this. 

The Botswana NDC update provides an excellent example of how specifying detailed information about mitigation measures can highlight SLCP and air pollution mitigation opportunities implicit within an NDC. Botswana does not mention air pollution or SLCPs within its NDC but outlines how the expansion of renewable energy, public transportation and energy efficiency programmes will achieve its GHG reduction goals alongside improving livestock diets and reducing wildfires. These actions, although focused on GHG reductions, target major SLCP and air pollution sources. Botswana, therefore, stands to benefit from implementing its NDC from reduced air pollution exposure and improved public health. Evaluating and quantifying these public health and economic benefits can help to make them more explicit within NDC implementation monitoring frameworks. 

Most recently, the United Kingdom’s NDC explicitly makes the link between climate change mitigation and improving public health. It outlines how its 81% reduction in GHG emissions will be achieved in part through the development of a new Clean Air Strategy which protects ‘the right to health’ as set out in the Paris Agreement. The decarbonization of the transport sector is a specific example of where public health benefits are particularly strong. 

There is no requirement or agreed format for the inclusion of SLCPs and air pollution benefits within NDCs. This can be a disadvantage as there is no prompt for countries to consider these aspects or a format that can encourage consistency and comparability across countries. However, it is also a powerful advantage. If a country has included SLCPs or air pollutants within its NDC, it is because they have been convinced of the benefits that it can achieve from its inclusion. The early NDC submitters have provided encouraging signs that arguments such as that reductions in SLCPs, particularly methane, are required to slow warming in the near term and that climate change mitigation is a public health opportunity are being heard and acted upon within national climate planning. These first NDC updates also show that there are multiple ways to reflect SLCP mitigation within NDCs. This includes specific targets, sectoral pathways, identification of specific mitigation measures, and links to public health initiatives. Countries developing their NDCs currently now have a suite of examples that could be adapted to their context.