NDCs 3.0 — a paper tiger in the global climate fight

Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) are climate commitments made by each country that signed the Paris Agreement to help fight climate change through collective action. Simply put, an NDC is a national climate action plan outlining what a country will do based on its unique strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges to reduce the causes of climate change and adapt to its impacts. Every five years, countries submit these plans to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and their progress is reviewed annually to ensure they're following through.

Its development hinges on analysing the situation to first understand a country's position regarding the impacts and causes of climate change, then deciding where it aims to go, using its own resources if it's in the Global North, or with climate financing if it's in the Global South. The initial step in this analysis involves a baseline assessment, which is particularly challenging for Global South countries, where managing and administering various issues, from broad to specific levels, is often disorganised. This leads many Global South nations to rely heavily on secondary data for their NDCs, which in turn makes the Global North hesitant to contribute to climate funds for their implementation. This dynamic forms the core of global climate politics, where those causing climate change and those suffering its effects struggle to agree, with climate finance — tailored to the needs of the most affected — remaining a central issue in every global climate negotiation.

Nearly all Paris Agreement signatories, except for a few due to various reasons, have submitted so far three NDCs to the UNFCCC, with the third one arriving recently - and often overdue. Many countries still don't treat climate change with the urgency they profess, holding onto the misguided belief that the issue will somehow fix itself. This is a widespread misconception, and Pakistan is no exception. It recently submitted its third NDC, dubbed NDC-3.0, which is essentially a revision of its previous version with extended deadlines for meeting its goals.

Pakistan, known for its bureaucratic efficiency, proudly prefaces every climate-related document with the familiar claim that it contributes little to climate change but suffers greatly from its impacts. It rarely explains why it's so severely affected, even though other countries in the region face similar challenges. This focus could, in time, be seen as an unnecessary emphasis on a minor point, potentially raising questions about misplaced priorities. When you examine the root causes, about 70% of Pakistan's vulnerability stems from its weak infrastructure and highly inefficient service delivery systems. In every climate disaster, affected communities can't breathe easy until they hear the military has been deployed for rescue and relief. This highlights the glaring inefficiencies of civil organisations, some of which were specifically created to handle such crises.

The key question is how long such documents can remain effective when there's little or no actual work happening on the ground. That's why this latest version lacks any ambitious targets or compelling progress reports on previous ones. Most targets are either unchanged or only slightly increased, with deadlines extended to 2035. The sole notable achievement is the commitment to a 60% transition to renewable energy, of which 35% has been realised — but the document conveniently omits that this shift was driven by soaring electricity prices and chronic power outages, which pushed people toward off-grid solar solutions, reflecting their deep distrust in the national grid. When assessed on its merits, considering the government's policy efforts, the macro-level transition to renewables barely reached a few per cent.

The greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction target in NDC 3.0 remains unchanged, with a five-year extension to cut emissions by 50%. But what this 50% refers to is murky. Once again, the GHG inventory was calculated at a macro level using the Economic Survey and other broad reports, relying on rough estimates rather than precise data. A regulatory framework to accurately track all GHG emitters is still missing. Even if such a framework were developed on paper, implementing it across the board would be nearly impossible due to deep-rooted administrative issues, with inefficiency and corruption at the forefront. For the third time in a row, GHG emissions have been calculated based on guesswork.

The situation with climate adaptation targets is more concerning because there's no clear way to measure their success. Unlike mitigation targets, which can be tracked by reductions in fossil fuel-based electricity production, adaptation projects — like Recharge Pakistan — lack a reliable method to quantify outcomes, such as how much surface water is actually recharged into groundwater. The Global North isn't naive enough to accept bold claims without solid evidence of a project's success. Our policymakers and decision-makers are fully aware of this but aren't acting on it, instead just pushing forward to create an appearance of progress.

The only way to shift from flashy, mostly paper-based performance to real, on-the-ground results is to treat the public climate change sector as an exception to the flaws and inefficiencies plaguing other public sectors. If this sector also ignores merit-based rules or offers permanent jobs with outdated pay scales, it will perform as poorly as other government departments. Its lackluster results can't be excused by claiming insufficient climate finance, as anyone with a bit of sense would ask why Pakistan hasn't convincingly secured more funding from foreign donors — a critical gap also missing in NDC 3.0.