The world’s recent climate commitments will help decrease greenhouse gas emissions but this will still not be enough to limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius by the end of the century as necessitated by the Paris Agreement of 2015, according to a report released by the United Nations on October 26.

The report, which synthesises information from the combined Nationally Determined Contributions submitted by 193 countries, has been put together by UN Climate Change (the secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC) in the run up to the 27th Conference of Parties that will be held in Egypt in November this year.

UN Climate Change also released a report examining long-term low emissions development strategies on the same day. The State of Climate Report 2022, also released on October 26, examined 40 indicators of progress in climate action and found that none are on track to meet 2030 targets.

All nations party to the Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change ratified by 196 parties in 2015, have to submit Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs to the UNFCCC. An NDC is a set of long-term goals that list out how each country aims to cut its carbon emissions and adapt to climate impacts.

UN Climate Change maintains a registry of all NDCs, and each country has to update theirs every five years. India’s first NDC, submitted in 2015, listed out eight goals. This included reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 33% to 35% by 2030 from levels in 2005.

India’s NDC, updated in August this year, includes reducing emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% by 2030 from the 2005 level, and achieving 50% cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030 (as opposed to 40% that was listed as part of its first NDC).