The Paris Agreement requires each party to submit a new nationally determined contribution, or NDC, every five years. The third round, covering targets for 2035, was due by 10 February 2025. When the deadline passed, only 13 of the 195 parties had filed, according to Carbon Brief's count, the International Institute for Environment and Development and the UN Economic Commission for Africa.
The 13 were the United States, Brazil, Uruguay, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Singapore, New Zealand, the Marshall Islands, Andorra, Saint Lucia, Ecuador and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was the only African country to meet the deadline. The US submission was made by the previous administration in December 2024, before the new administration announced its withdrawal from the agreement.
Some trackers reported slightly different figures depending on how late-evening submissions were counted. The IISD's SDG Knowledge Hub listed 15 parties, adding Botswana and Lesotho, and noted that Canada and Japan filed days later. Carbon Brief estimated that countries missing the deadline account for 83% of global greenhouse gas emissions and nearly 80% of the world economy.
Why the deadline slipped
The 10 February date was set by the 2023 global stocktake at COP28 in Dubai, and placed nine months before COP30 in Belém. The intention was to give the UN secretariat time to compile a synthesis report showing whether the new targets collectively put the world on a path consistent with the Paris temperature goals.
In practice, the deadline is not enforceable, and the UN Development Programme has noted that the cut-off for inclusion in the UNFCCC synthesis report is September 2025. Several governments said they wanted more time to finalise plans that would be credible and investable. Others were in the middle of elections or changes of government. The European Union's NDC depends on agreement on its 2040 climate target, which has not yet been proposed formally by the Commission.
What the submitted targets say
The filed NDCs vary widely in form. The UK's target is a reduction of at least 81% in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 compared with 1990 levels, announced by the prime minister at COP29 in November 2024. Brazil, which will host COP30, set a range of reductions for 2035 relative to 2005 levels. The UAE, host of COP28, submitted an economy-wide target that includes its oil and gas sector.
For energy markets, the content of these early submissions is less important than what is still missing. The largest emitters, China, India and the EU, together with Russia, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia, had not filed at the deadline. China's target in particular will matter for global coal, oil and gas demand projections, because Chinese energy demand has been the largest source of growth in global fossil fuel consumption over the past two decades.
How NDCs feed into energy forecasts
NDCs matter to energy markets through modelling. The International Energy Agency's scenarios, and those of most banks, consultancies and oil companies, include a case based on stated policies and a case that assumes countries meet their announced pledges. The gap between those cases, for oil, gas and coal demand in 2030 and 2035, is large, and it depends on what countries put into their NDCs.
When a major economy files a new target, analysts revise their pledges scenarios. A stronger target for power sector emissions, for example, implies more renewable and nuclear capacity and less coal and gas burn. A target expressed in emissions intensity rather than absolute emissions leaves more room for fuel consumption to grow with the economy.
NDCs are not the same as domestic policy. Many countries have targets without matching laws, budgets or market rules. Investors therefore tend to treat NDCs as a statement of direction, and look to national energy plans, power sector auctions, carbon pricing and fuel standards for the actual signal.
The emerging market dimension
Many developing country NDCs are written in two parts: an unconditional target the country will pursue with its own resources, and a conditional target that depends on international finance. The amount of finance available has become more uncertain. At COP29 in Baku, countries agreed a new collective goal for developed countries to provide or mobilise at least $300 billion a year by 2035. The new US administration has since rescinded the US international climate finance plan.
For countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and others with high exposure to floods, heat and drought, the conditional part of an NDC often includes both emissions cuts and adaptation measures. Those plans also shape demand for power sector investment, including grid expansion, hydro, solar and storage, and the financing terms that make such projects viable.
The power sector is where pledges bite first
In most NDCs, the power sector carries the largest share of near-term emissions cuts, because the technologies to decarbonise electricity are mature and often cheaper than new fossil generation on a lifetime cost basis. A 2035 target therefore usually translates into a schedule for coal plant retirements, renewable and nuclear additions, and grid investment. That makes the targets relevant to utility planners and equipment suppliers as well as to fuel traders.
The same logic applies in reverse. Countries where electricity demand is rising quickly, because of industrialisation, cooling needs in hotter summers or new data centre loads, may frame targets that allow fossil generation to keep growing in absolute terms while its share falls. How countries treat rising demand will be one of the main differences between this round of pledges and the last.
What to watch
The next milestone is September 2025, the practical cut-off for inclusion in the UN synthesis report ahead of COP30. Between now and then, the targets to follow are those of China, the EU and India.
For each, the questions that matter for energy markets are whether the target is absolute or intensity-based, whether it covers all greenhouse gases or only carbon dioxide, whether there are sector-specific commitments for power or transport, and whether it is backed by a domestic policy instrument such as a carbon market. The answers will feed directly into long-term demand projections for coal, gas and oil.
The low number of on-time submissions is not by itself a sign of what the final targets will contain. It does mean that, for most of 2025, energy market forecasts for 2035 will continue to rely on older pledges and on assumptions about what large emitters will announce.