Just as momentum was building towards agreement on 5-year Common Time Frames (CTFrs), with an end date of 2035 for the next NDCs, a new text takes us back to square one.
The EU came around to 5 years just before the COP, and this week the China-USA statement said they would both submit, in 2025, an NDC for the period to 2035. The vast majority of countries, including AOSIS, LDCs, AILAC, and the Africa Group, all supported 5 years, and most of those wanting to keep the window open for 10 years either showed flexibility or likely had merely tactical motivations.
A clear decision on 5-year CTFrs for NDCs from 2031 onwards appeared to be a slam dunk.
But a new text out late-Thursday proposes that countries could opt out of submitting an NDC in the next round by 2025, while thereafter observing 5-year common time frames.
Along with exempting countries from raising their ambition by 2025, this would appear to be in violation of Article 4.9 of the Paris Agreement, which requires parties to submit an NDC every 5 years. Or at the very least, it provides no guidance for 2025.
The below version of the proposed paragraph 1 in the new text does the job nicely, and is all that is needed:
1. Decides that each Party shall communicate in 2025 a nationally determined contribution with an end date of 31 December 2035, in 2030 a nationally determined contribution with an end date of 31 December 2040, and so forth every five years thereafter;
A note appended to the bottom of the document also proposes an interesting idea – calling for submission by 2025 of a revised version of the current NDCs with an enhanced and more ambitious 2030 target. This would be a welcome addition in the CMA overarching decision.