An Assessment of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) In-depth Country Focus

In November 2015, 196 countries negotiated the Paris Climate Agreement, a landmark international treaty on climate change mitigation, adaptation, and financing, which set the long-term goal of limiting global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels. As a result, 191 states and the European Union as signatories expressed their commitment to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieve a ‘climate-neutral’ world by 2050.



The Paris Agreement works through a five (5)-year cycle of increasing ambitious climate action negotiated and signified by member-states. As part of this cycle, Article 4, Paragraph 2 of the Agreement requires each party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions (NDCs) that it intends to achieve. These NDCs embody the commitments and undertakings of all countries to combat and address climate change issues and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), including but not limited to baseline scenarios per country, current and planned policy framework initiatives, climate financing initiatives, plans, and measures, and overall updates with regards to the realization of climate targets.



This assessment aims to present an analysis of three Southeast Asian states’ NDCs, namely Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand, thereby providing insight into how a future ‘decarbonized’ picture might look like in these countries.