NDCs and the Global Stocktake: the machinery of the Paris Agreement

Background

The Emissions Gap Report 2026 rests on the machinery of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, which was adopted in 2015 and set the 1.5-degree target. Under the Paris Agreement, countries are required to submit national climate action plans, known as NDCs. UN News reports that even if all NDCs are delivered and similar efforts continue, warming will be limited to 2.6 degrees Celsius, and that new NDCs submitted since the last emissions report have hardly made a difference. The first-ever Global Stocktake was a process held from 2021 to 2023 to assess collective progress towards achieving the Paris Agreement, and the report calls for accelerating implementation of the goals it set out, including tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling the annual rate of energy efficiency improvement. The report also notes that renewable energy has boomed since 2015 and that total energy supply from coal and oil has grown more slowly than projected.