LocationsThe Challenge
The science is clear: countries have a short window of time to take the urgent action necessary to limit average global temperature rise to a safer 1.5 °C. Global warming is already causing long-lasting changes to our climate system, and threatens lives and livelihoods around the world. We have a once-in-a generation opportunity - through the Paris Agreement on Climate Change and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - to ensure a more sustainable, equitable and prosperous future for all.
UNDP's Climate Promise
The Climate Promise is UNDP’s response to this challenge. Tackling the climate crisis requires that all countries make bold pledges under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases (GHG) that cause global warming. The Climate Promise is our commitment to ensure that any country wishing to increase the ambition of their national climate pledge is able to do so.
Our Promise support draws upon UNDP’s extensive portfolio of expertise across priorities such as energy, forests, water, resilience, agriculture, health, youth, finance, governance, gender equality and green jobs. It also builds upon UNDP’s established track record in supporting governments to discuss, design and deliver climate action under Paris Agreement.
UNDP has agreed Climate Promise workplans with 110 countries – making it the world’s largest offer of support for the enhancement of countries’ climate pledges.
How Does it Work?
UNDP’s Climate Promise provides five key technical areas of support to help countries take bold action to reduce their emissions, increase their resilience to climate impacts and support sustainable development priorities.
Working closely with our partners, we work together on climate action across government and society to advance equality, tackle poverty and strengthen social and environmental sustainability. This includes addressing key cross-cutting issues as demonstrated in this word cloud from Climate Promise plans.
UNDP’s Climate Promise and COVID-19
As part of UNDP’s overall support to countries to prepare, respond and recover from COVID-19 health crisis, our Climate Promise services are being adjusted to bolster critical government efforts to address climate action within their pandemic response by using their pledges to “green” stimulus packages and longer-term investments and development plans. This way, we can help to ensure that vulnerable communities are protected against the crises of today, while also designing a more resilient and equitable tomorrow.
Mali launched its climate pledge review process on 16 March 2020.
Moldova is the fourth country in the world to submit a new climate pledge – and the first country participating in UNDP’s Climate Promise to do so
Morocco’s pledge calls for new low-carbon solutions and engages the private sector
Small Island Developing States like Vanuatu have already started trialing modular energy solutions.
Chile is pioneering methodologies for quantifying the cost of inaction on climate change through its national pledge
Mission 1.5 – an innovative mobile game and global vote – aims to educate and survey the opinions of millions of people on climate change.
Results in focus
Republic of Moldova
The Republic of Moldova is the fourth country in the world to submit a new climate pledge – and also the first country participating in UNDP’s Climate Promise to do so. The government has increased ambition, with a new target of reducing emissions by 70% in 2030 against 1990 levels, an increase from the 64-67% reduction proposed in its first pledge. The new pledge also includes a conditional emission reduction target of 88% (up from 78% in the first plan) if international support of USD 5 billion can be provided. UNDP provided support through the European Commission-financed EU4Climate Regional Project, which also includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, and Ukraine.
Nigeria
Nigeria is one of the first African countries to start revising their national climate pledge through the Climate Promise and the NDC Support Programme. Building on a successful inception workshop in early March 2020, the government is leading the way in developing a national toolkit to integrate climate action into broader development efforts such as the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan. Nigeria has already committed to a more ambitious 20-30% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030, and the new pledge will also include engage all of society to define and improve climate responses for water, short-lived climate pollutants, forestry and other nature-based solutions, in a gender-responsive manner.
Mobilizing all People for Climate Action through Mission 1.5
More and more global citizens, especially young people, are mobilizing to demand climate action but sometimes they struggle to have their voices heard by governments. At the same time, governments often lack access to reliable information about what their citizens think about climate action. Mission 1.5 uses mobile gaming technology to provide a bridge between citizens and governments – empowering people to cast a vote for the actions they think their government should take and aggregating the data to inform policymakers on the world’s preferred climate actions to keep our planet safe for future generations.
63 countries being supported under the Climate Promise are planning targeted citizen engagement through Mission 1.5, but anyone with internet access can also play at Mission1Point5.org. To further increase reach, UNDP is partnering with Citizen’s Climate Lobby and March for Science, among others, and pursuing private sector partnerships with the gaming industry. In response to demand, a complementary educational module is also now in development for teachers and parents that provides more guidance on the choices made during the Mission 1.5 game.
Delivering Results in Collaboration
The Climate Promise is possible thanks to generous support from Sweden, Germany, European Union, Italy, Spain, and other core donors, and is underpins UNDP’s contribution to the NDC Partnership’s Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP) initiative.
UNDP ensures its Climate Promise support is complementary to, and leverages the mandates, comparative advantages and skillsets of a wide range of strategic partners., including UNEP (energy, adaptation, resource efficiency, forestry and nature-based solutions), FAO (adaptation, forestry), IRENA (energy), UNICEF (youth and social protection), World Bank (adaptation), UN-HABITAT (local and regional governance, cities), WHO (health), and others, as well as a global roster of climate change experts.
An overview of UNDP’s Climate Promise can be found here: (Download brochure)
