The Paris Agreement, in force since 2016, was emblematic for having set a common goal for the 195 countries that signed it, facilitating the union of efforts at the international level to deal with climate change, something that had not been achieved until then.
To achieve the famous goal — of “ensuring that the increase in the global average temperature remains well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared with pre-industrial levels” — Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, were created. These documents, which must be submitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), contain each country's commitments to address the climate crisis. In them, countries freely declare, according to their circumstances, how they will reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how they will advance adaptation to the climate crisis.
The NDCs were first submitted in 2015, when the Paris Agreement was adopted, and since then they have been required to be updated every five years, with increasingly ambitious targets. The first update of these commitments occurred in 2020, and in 2025, countries must submit a new update of their NDCs, with targets for 2030 and 2035. This means we could see a significant number of updated commitments from all UNFCCC member countries (at least, that's what we expect), which opens up a range of opportunities for those seeking to promote greater ambition, as well as more and better climate action.
Taking advantage of the NDC update
Updating the NDCs presents an opportunity to drive more ambitious and effective climate action. On the one hand, the development of these updates must include participatory processes that allow people to be part of the country's proposed goals, incorporating key elements to raise ambition and ensure that climate actions are implementable and effective (although few countries manage to guarantee acceptable standards of participation).
In the case of AIDA, for example, we are always concerned with promoting the importance of designing climate action that respects nature and human rights, especially those of people and communities in vulnerable situations, and that incorporates a gender and intersectional perspective. This last point is crucial to ensuring a balanced distribution of burdens and benefits among the different people who make up societies and also to ensuring that women and historically excluded groups contribute their knowledge and experiences to the design of solutions. These participatory processes vary from country to country, and although they are often inadequate, it is worth paying attention to the possibilities they offer.
On the other hand, updated and published NDCs serve as instruments of pressure, as they contain commitments that countries undertake under the Paris Agreement, which, in the realm of international law, is legally binding , especially when the signatory countries recognize the binding nature of this instrument in their domestic legislation. This means that, as representatives of civil society, we can monitor what the country is doing in relation to what it has promised, evaluate its performance, and demand accountability from our governments.
Along these lines arises the possibility of litigating based on these NDCs, something that has been happening recently in some countries in the region and in the world, with interesting results.
The possibility of litigation, based on the NDCs
The region has already witnessed a couple of lawsuits based on NDCs. In one of them, filed in Mexico in 2021, Greenpeace brought a constitutional action against various Mexican authorities for the drafting and approval of the country's NDC, updated to 2020. The case was based on the claim that the right to a healthy environment and the principle of progressivity were being violated due to the lack of ambition in the commitments. The court handling the case denied the injunction, arguing that the plaintiff had failed to demonstrate that the NDC violated the right in question. However, after multiple advocacy efforts by civil society organizations (see here and here for the civil society calls to action), the Mexican government submitted an updated NDC with higher GHG mitigation targets.
Meanwhile, in Brazil that same year, six activists representing two organizations filed a class-action lawsuit against the government for updating its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 2020, which reduced, rather than increased, the country's ambition. In their lawsuit, they requested the suspension of the NDC's effects and its alignment with the progressivity requirement of the Paris Agreement. While awaiting a resolution to the case, the Brazilian government submitted a new update to its NDCs in 2023 that merely reaffirmed the commitments made in its initial NDC. The world's attention will be focused on Brazil's next NDC update.
The possibility of litigating based on the NDCs opens an interesting opportunity to leverage the Paris Agreement and demand more and better climate action. If this new round of updates fails to meet the necessary ambition to address the climate crisis, our environmental courts will be called upon to respond to the demands of civil society, which, through strategic litigation, will seek to establish precedents that will further strengthen the tool of climate litigation.
Meanwhile, stay informed of all the latest developments in this type of litigation in the region on the Climate Litigation Platform for Latin America and the Caribbean , where you will find information about many of the cases that are challenging authorities and corporations to take responsibility and contribute to solving the climate crisis.
Text written by Florencia Ortúzar Greene - director of the Climate Program of the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA)
*Check out this blog with basic information about the NDCs and what the upcoming 2025 update process means.
**To learn more about the progress of each country's climate commitments, you can visit the UNFCCC website, which has a database of countries that have submitted their NDCs and the date they did so.
***Also check out the Climate Action Tracker project , which tracks government climate action by comparing countries' policies and NDCs with the goals of the Paris Agreement
****Finally, we recommend NDC LAC , a digital tool that provides information on the progress in the implementation and updating of NDCs in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Paris Agreement, in force since 2016, was emblematic for having set a common goal for the 195 countries that signed it, facilitating the union of efforts at the international level to deal with climate change, something that had not been achieved until then.
To achieve the famous goal — of “ensuring that the increase in the global average temperature remains well below 2°C, preferably to 1.5°C, compared with pre-industrial levels” — Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs, were created. These documents, which must be submitted to the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), contain each country's commitments to address the climate crisis. In them, countries freely declare, according to their circumstances, how they will reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and how they will advance adaptation to the climate crisis.
The NDCs were first submitted in 2015, when the Paris Agreement was adopted, and since then they have been required to be updated every five years, with increasingly ambitious targets. The first update of these commitments occurred in 2020, and in 2025, countries must submit a new update of their NDCs, with targets for 2030 and 2035. This means we could see a significant number of updated commitments from all UNFCCC member countries (at least, that's what we expect), which opens up a range of opportunities for those seeking to promote greater ambition, as well as more and better climate action.
Taking advantage of the NDC update
Updating the NDCs presents an opportunity to drive more ambitious and effective climate action. On the one hand, the development of these updates must include participatory processes that allow people to be part of the country's proposed goals, incorporating key elements to raise ambition and ensure that climate actions are implementable and effective (although few countries manage to guarantee acceptable standards of participation).
In the case of AIDA, for example, we are always concerned with promoting the importance of designing climate action that respects nature and human rights, especially those of people and communities in vulnerable situations, and that incorporates a gender and intersectional perspective. This last point is crucial to ensuring a balanced distribution of burdens and benefits among the different people who make up societies and also to ensuring that women and historically excluded groups contribute their knowledge and experiences to the design of solutions. These participatory processes vary from country to country, and although they are often inadequate, it is worth paying attention to the possibilities they offer.
On the other hand, updated and published NDCs serve as instruments of pressure, as they contain commitments that countries undertake under the Paris Agreement, which, in the realm of international law, is legally binding , especially when the signatory countries recognize the binding nature of this instrument in their domestic legislation. This means that, as representatives of civil society, we can monitor what the country is doing in relation to what it has promised, evaluate its performance, and demand accountability from our governments.
Along these lines arises the possibility of litigating based on these NDCs, something that has been happening recently in some countries in the region and in the world, with interesting results.
The possibility of litigation, based on the NDCs
The region has already witnessed a couple of lawsuits based on NDCs. In one of them, filed in Mexico in 2021, Greenpeace brought a constitutional action against various Mexican authorities for the drafting and approval of the country's NDC, updated to 2020. The case was based on the claim that the right to a healthy environment and the principle of progressivity were being violated due to the lack of ambition in the commitments. The court handling the case denied the injunction, arguing that the plaintiff had failed to demonstrate that the NDC violated the right in question. However, after multiple advocacy efforts by civil society organizations (see here and here for the civil society calls to action), the Mexican government submitted an updated NDC with higher GHG mitigation targets.
Meanwhile, in Brazil that same year, six activists representing two organizations filed a class-action lawsuit against the government for updating its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 2020, which reduced, rather than increased, the country's ambition. In their lawsuit, they requested the suspension of the NDC's effects and its alignment with the progressivity requirement of the Paris Agreement. While awaiting a resolution to the case, the Brazilian government submitted a new update to its NDCs in 2023 that merely reaffirmed the commitments made in its initial NDC. The world's attention will be focused on Brazil's next NDC update.
The possibility of litigating based on the NDCs opens an interesting opportunity to leverage the Paris Agreement and demand more and better climate action. If this new round of updates fails to meet the necessary ambition to address the climate crisis, our environmental courts will be called upon to respond to the demands of civil society, which, through strategic litigation, will seek to establish precedents that will further strengthen the tool of climate litigation.
Meanwhile, stay informed of all the latest developments in this type of litigation in the region on the Climate Litigation Platform for Latin America and the Caribbean , where you will find information about many of the cases that are challenging authorities and corporations to take responsibility and contribute to solving the climate crisis.
Text written by Florencia Ortúzar Greene - director of the Climate Program of the Inter-American Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA)
*Check out this blog with basic information about the NDCs and what the upcoming 2025 update process means.
**To learn more about the progress of each country's climate commitments, you can visit the UNFCCC website, which has a database of countries that have submitted their NDCs and the date they did so.
***Also check out the Climate Action Tracker project , which tracks government climate action by comparing countries' policies and NDCs with the goals of the Paris Agreement
****Finally, we recommend NDC LAC , a digital tool that provides information on the progress in the implementation and updating of NDCs in Latin America and the Caribbean.