My sincere thanks to the COP28 UAE Presidency, the incoming COP29 Presidency of Azerbaijan, and the incoming COP30 Presidency of Brazil for convening this event. The COP Presidency ‘troika’ is providing a much-needed moment for coming together to raise ambition and accelerate implementation of the ‘UAE Consensus.’ 

With regards to the UN’s efforts to support preparation and implementation of NDCs, as Selwin has highlighted, we have recently launched ‘Climate Promise 2025.’ This UN System-wide effort aims to help countries align their NDCs with the 1.5° goal of the Paris Agreement and the SDGs, as well as strengthen their quality and ‘invest-ability,’ while accelerating their implementation to drive sustainable development. 

At the request of the UN Secretary-General, we are leveraging the results, experience and infrastructure from UNDP’s Climate Promise (launched in 2019, supporting 128 developing countries) to drive this coordinated effort. This will draw on the expertise and ongoing support from all UN System partners.

Climate Promise 2025 is underpinned by three critical pillars:

• Ambition: enhancing 2025 NDCs in response to the Global Stocktake and strengthening long-term strategies. 
• Acceleration: scaling-up implementation of climate action by driving finance and technical support towards NDC targets.
• Inclusivity: strengthening whole-of-society approach, through meaningful and long-term engagement with underrepresented actors.

In response to the urgent need to enhance NDCs by 2025, UNDP is building on our experience from the last revision cycle and from emerging needs of countries. Our substantive contribution to the ambition pillar on NDC enhancement will be articulated around 4 key areas of support: 

1. Taking stock of NDC implementation to date and defining a roadmap ahead: countries have expressed the difficulty in defining where and how to raise ambition without understanding what has been accomplished to date. 

Complementing working on their first Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) we will support an assessment of implementation efforts to give countries the evidence for how to raise ambition and the support needs, providing the confidence to take the next step.

These stocktakes will also foster dialogue and collaboration among key stakeholders, a critical starting point of the enhancement process. 

2. Strengthening targets: Central to UNDP’s support is integrating the outcomes of the Global Stocktake and the findings of national implementation stocktakes. 

We will assist countries in setting economy-wide targets, including new sectors, and exploring ambition-raising opportunities for both mitigation and adaptation.

To ensure that the next NDCs are both ambitious and equitable, we will emphasize just transition, gender equality, and social inclusion.

3. National Coordination and stakeholder engagement: We cannot over-emphasize the power of bringing stakeholders together around a shared vision and ambition – in particular the buy-in of actors in NDC priority sectors - to translate NDC measures into sectoral actions. 

We will help facilitate engagement and empowerment of actors from government agencies to private sector to academia, as well as women, youth and indigenous people. 

4. Costing and means of implementation: An investable NDC starts with understanding what it will take to implement the NDC, including what the measures will cost. 

UNDP will support countries to define needs and potential sources of finance, capacity and technology, and also strengthen elements to attract private sector.

We will also help countries integrate financing needs into national financing frameworks that have proven to drive investment into countries national development priorities. 

In fact, a growing number of countries are already successfully leveraging financing frameworks, including the dedicated “Integrated National Financing Frameworks, or INFFs,” coming out of the Financing for Development process. Using this INFF approach, currently underway in more than 85 countries, countries are using these sovereign frameworks to unlock and align public and private finance towards NDCs and national development plans.

A prime example is in the Maldives, where they have defined policy reforms in a gender-responsive and green INFF, that focus on removing fossil fuel subsidies and targeted social protection into the national budget.

In addition, the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) have a critical role to play on the supply side of finance, particularly through country platforms. The opportunity is for country platforms to respond to and reinforce the sovereign priorities that countries articulate through their NDCs and INFFs.

Ambitious NDCs set a pathway to a 1.5°C trajectory, these are underpinned by financing priorities articulated through INFFs, and then backed by MDBs - via country platforms, that mobilise capital investment at scale.  This approach can be central to deliver on the political push around the third generation of NDCs, and simultaneously offer a strong outcome of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development. 

The UN system will coalesce around the Climate Promise to coordinate its support on NDCs, leveraging the Resident Coordinator System and the UN Country Teams. In close coordination as key implementing partners of the NDC Partnership, the UN System will also coordinate efforts with other critical partners – like the World Bank, Regional Development Banks and International Financial Institutions.

Colleagues, with a short timeframe to develop meaningful and impactful NDCs, we are mobilizing the entire UN System to help countries at this critical moment. UNDP is fully committed to responding to the needs of countries and supporting Parties’ leadership on the road to 2025. 

Thank you.