A Guide to INDCs - Intended Nationally Determined Contributions
This guide is intended to support the preparation of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) by Least Developed Countries (LDCs) for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It seeks to address the broad spectrum of approaches being considered by LDCs in preparing their INDCs, reflecting their different national circumstances and levels of capacity, preparedness and ambition.
This guide serves as a practical tool for LDCs to support their INDC preparations. In doing so, it addresses a number of common challenges that LDCs face:
- their emissions are low in the global context, but they may wish to take actions to embrace low-carbon development and future-proof their investments;
- they have a prevailing need for economic development and poverty reduction, including improving energy access;
- they have limited capacity to undertake the analysis needed to develop their INDC;
- they are likely to face constraints in implementing the actions envisaged in their INDCs and certain actions/levels of ambition are likely to be dependent or conditional on the provision of funding from developed countries;
- they are among some of the most climate-vulnerable countries and therefore adaptation is likely to be a major focus of their national climate change plans.
In the absence of an official INDC template from the UNFCCC, the following guide offers a practical example of how an LDC INDC could be structured and its key elements. Each section cross-references the relevant text from the UNFCCC Call to Climate Action (Decision -/CP.20), outlines the aims ofthe section and suggested data sources for completing the template.