Looking Ahead at 2025

Pakistan’s Nationally Determined Contributions

Date: January 3, 2025

Rafay Alam
Environmental lawyer and activist

The Paris Agreement requires countries to prepare and submit Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that set out that country’s contribution to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction.  Collectively, NDCs are supposed to ensure the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming under 1.5C.

Pakistan’s first NDC was submitted in 2016.  These documents are to be revised every 5 years and so the NDC was updated in 2021 and now, a decade after the first NDC, preparations are being made for a second NDC that will set out Pakistan’s highest ambitions and progression of GHG reduction strategies over the 2025-2035 period.

The First NDC recorded Pakistan’s 2015 GHG emissions at 400 million tonnes of carbon per year and, based on CPEC-fueled economic predictions of the time, said emissions would rise to 1600MTC/year by 2030.  In its revised NDC, Pakistan aimed to reduce its projected emissions by 50% by 2030; of this 15% would come from its own resources and the other 35% contingent on climate finance.  Pakistan intends to reduce projected emissions by investing in renewable energy and having as much as 60% of the energy mix produced in 2030 come from renewables. The World Bank estimates this transition will cost over $100 billion.

The ability to access climate finance is the unwritten assumption of the NDC.  Earlier this year and just before COP29, the Government of Pakistan adopted a climate finance mechanism to attract climate finance.  Hopefully, this document will provide climate financiers the clarity and security they need before agreeing to invest in Pakistan.  Meanwhile, the 2015 assumption that economic growth would increase GHG emissions should be revisited.

Provincial coordination and buy-in is necessary if the GHG emissions commitments made by Pakistan are to be realized.  As of August this year, all four provinces as well as AJ&K and Gilgit-Baltisttan have their own climate policies or action plans.  This reflects the provincial nature of much climate governance.  However, to date, the preparation and update of the NDC has not included meaningful provincial participation.  The preparation of a new NDC in 2025 is an opportunity to take the provinces onboard and to secure their part in the GHG reductions envisaged in the NDC.