This report responds to country requests for urgent guidance on the preparation of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), a core component of the Paris climate change conference (COP21). The guidance document draws on ideas shared in the 2014-2015 Regional Technical Dialogues on INDCs, convened by UNDP and the UNFCCC Secretariat, and takes into account feedback from an extensive review by countries and other organizations.

The tool has been distributed to over 110 countries and is being used around the world to prepare countries’ contributions to the global 2-degree Celsius goal in the lead-up to the 2015 climate change conference.  

More specifically, the document walks practitioners through the technical and process-related choices they will face in preparing their INDCs, laid out in five general steps: 1) Identifying the benefits of an INDC; 2) Organizing the national process to prepare a contribution; 3) Identifying data and analysis to inform the INDC; 4) Choosing options for designing the INDC; and 5) Communicating the INDC. It also emphasizes the role of INDCs in strengthening stakeholder engagement, advancing non-climate benefits, integrating climate change into national planning processes, and communicating internationally the actions countries that will take on climate change in the post-2020 period. The wide range of INDC design options presented in the guidance document provides considerable flexibility for countries to build on past efforts and tailor contributions to their national circumstances and development priorities.