Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, every five years countries must submit detailed plans – called nationally determined contributions (NDCs) – with clear targets on cutting emissions, or curbing them in the case of poorer countries.
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Among the dozen or so countries that have submitted their NDCs so far are Brazil, the host of Cop30; the United Arab Emirates, the host of Cop28 in 2023; and the UK, which under the new prime minister, Keir Starmer, has promised to show climate leadership.
This time, the deadline is technically 10 February – nine months before the Cop30 summit in Brazil this November – but with only a handful of countries so far having submitted plans, it looks likely that most will miss it.
The vast majority of governments are likely to miss a looming deadline to file vital plans that will determine whether or not the world has a chance of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown.
