Every five years, all 195 signatories of the 2015 Paris Agreement must submit updated plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming. These plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), are key components of the agreement and represent countries’ highest ambitions for emissions reductions over the next decade.
“The NDC is a pledge,” Director of International Government Relations at Woodwell Climate Dr. Matti Goldberg says. “It’s a pledge by a government to reduce their emissions by a certain amount, by a certain time frame. It can also be a pledge of taking certain types of actions. Each NDC also contains plans and measures to put it into action.”
This year, countries must submit their third NDC ahead of COP30 in Belém, Brazil.
How do NDCs fit into the Paris Agreement?
The Paris Agreement is a legally-binding international treaty under the UNFCCC. The treaty states that signatories should work together to limit global temperature increase to “well under 2°C” above pre-industrial levels and pursue efforts to keep the increase below 1.5°C. Nationally Determined Contributions outline how countries plan to achieve this goal and take other measures as part of the global climate effort.
Each NDC must build upon a country’s previous submission and reflect the party’s “highest possible ambition,” according to the Paris Agreement. While parties are legally required to submit an NDC and pursue actions to reach the target, they are “not legally bound to reach the target,” Goldberg says. “It’s a gigantic loophole in a way…although such flexibility is obviously necessary for countries to agree to this, and it does create a structure of pressure.”
After NDCs are submitted, the UNFCCC assesses the combined impact of countries’ NDCs on projected global emissions in a synthesis report. Parties in the Paris agreement also submit a Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) every two years, which outlines each country’s progress made towards accomplishing their NDCs.
“It’s the country’s own assessment,” Goldberg says. “But if a country announces a metric, then others can, of course, also look at whether that metric is being followed. This information creates the basis for civil society and other governments to put pressure on those governments.” Further transparency is created by a process where international experts review each country’s biennial reports.
Despite the ambitious intent of NDCs, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Simon Stiell determined last November that previous pledges fell “miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country.”
What is in the 2025 NDCs?
NDCs were initially due in February 2025, but with only 13 Parties submitting on time, the UNFCCC Secretariat announced a cut-off date in September to have enough time to prepare its synthesis before the start of COP30 in November. China, the United States, India, the European Union, Russia and Brazil were the world’s top emitters in 2023. Together, these six parties accounted for 62.7% of all global emissions. Of the top greenhouse gas emitters, only the U.S. and Brazil sent in their NDCs as of early September 2025.
The United States submitted its NDC in 2024 under the Biden Administration and set a target of reducing its net greenhouse gas emissions by 61 to 66% below 2005 levels in 2035. After taking office, President Trump issued an executive order announcing the U.S.’s intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, which will go into effect in 2026. After January 2026, the U.S. will no longer be required to submit new NDCs or Biennial Transparency Reports.
Despite the country’s withdrawal, Goldberg says the U.S. may see a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions because of its continuing transition from coal to natural gas, renewables and nuclear power — which, according to Goldberg, is driven more by economics and less by policy. Still, Dr. Christopher Schwalm, Vice President of Science at Woodwell Climate, predicts there is “no way” the United States will hit the targets set out in the NDC given the current global political climate. Even if the U.S. does reach its goals, the NDC still does not align with the global 1.5°C limit, according to the Climate Action Tracker. Schwalm calls the 1.5°C target “dead as a doornail.” To reach this goal, we would have needed global greenhouse gas emissions to peak by 2025.
Brazil’s most recent NDC states a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 59% to 67% compared to its 2005 emissions. Goldberg calls it a “pretty ambitious” absolute target for a country classified as a developing country under the UNFCCC. However, the Brazilian climate organization Observatório do Clima states the NDC goals do not align with the global 1.5°C limit.
How could reaching targets in NDCs impact warming trajectories?
Woodwell Climate research scientist Dr. Abigail Lute wanted to see how much of a difference just two of the top-emitting countries’ NDCs could make.
“Are we moving the needle here or not?” she says. “How much are we moving the needle? Are we moving it enough to avoid 2°C? That’s the big picture, to see how ambitious these new pledges are.”
Lute modeled how both the U.S. and Brazil’s promises together could change the global warming trajectory using a “middle-of-the-road” scenario for future greenhouse gas emissions — though, at the moment, that scenario might be more optimistic than our current trajectory, she says.
For the first ten to 20 years after implementing the NDCs, temperatures will temporarily increase. This is due to the reduction in polluting gases such as sulfates that actually have a cooling effect in the atmosphere. After about a decade or two, the reduction in warming gases such as methane and carbon dioxide will cause temperatures to fall.
According to Lute’s calculations, under moderate emissions scenarios, the probability of exceeding 2°C is 25% by 2050 and 78% by 2100. If both the U.S. and Brazil reach their NDC targets, the probability of exceeding 2°C stays about the same for 2050 but drops down to 73% for 2100.
Global warming is expected to reach 1.8°C by 2050 and 2.3°C by 2100 under the medium emissions scenario. With the U.S. and Brazil’s combined NDCs, Lute expects warming to be reduced by about 0.01°C in 2050 and 0.06°C by 2100.
While these contributions may seem small, Brazil and the U.S. only represent two of the 195 parties in the Paris Agreement.
“It’s two of the larger ones for sure, but it’s only two,” Lute says. “If we extrapolate it to everybody, then it can make a meaningful difference…the story here is that everybody needs to contribute. This is a collective problem, and even one large country can’t solve it.”
Scientists have a dire new warning about the state of the planet
Recent climatic developments “mark the beginning of a grim new chapter for life on Earth,” but it’s not too late for radical action.
As the end of 2025 approaches, regular folk take stock of the past year, and maybe ponder their New Year’s resolutions. Climate scientists, on the other hand, have been busy parsing mountains of data from the last 10 months, ranging from global temperatures to measurements of polar ice to the costs of extreme weather. Accordingly, their goal for 2026 might be to somehow make world leaders understand that humanity is running out of time to avert catastrophe.
On October 29, Woodwell Climate submitted public comment to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed amendments to the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP).
Community discusses landslide hazard mitigation at forum
Researchers held a community-focused conversation on landslide hazards and potential mitigation avenues last Tuesday at Kachemak Bay Campus.
Local and visiting researchers, along with city and state agency representatives, discussed landslide hazard mitigation and demonstrated a community sharing of knowledge during a forum held last week at Kachemak Bay Campus. The conversation also highlighted important roles that community members play in monitoring landslide hazards.
Woodwell Climate Conversations: Road to COP 30
Learn how Woodwell’s science and partnerships are impacting the international stage
Climate Policy Expert Frances Seymour and Dr. Matti Goldberg, Director of International Government Relations reflect on the major themes and outcomes from New York Climate Week, highlighting the momentum and challenges that emerged on the path to COP30 in Brazil.
From New Zealand to New York, people and communities are moving to avoid climate disasters
In the face of floods, wildfires and other natural disasters, when should a community relocate to avoid potential harm?
This month’s Nature Quest is about that very question. Listener Molly Magid in New Zealand wanted to know if and how other communities have chosen the path of “managed retreat.” That’s the purposeful and coordinated movement of people and assets out of harm’s way.
From the Amazon to the Congo Basin, the largest remainder of tropical forest lies in Brazil and the Democratic Republic of Congo – taking up nearly 4 million square miles of land. As epicenters of biodiversity and carbon storage, these forests serve as the stabilizers of our climate. Yet many tropical forests around the world are disappearing as climate change and human activity drive deforestation every year.
Despite covering only 6% of the planet, tropical forests play a critical role in climate control. They prevent atmospheric warming by storing carbon, dispersing heat, releasing cooling water into the air, and helping to create clouds. They also help regulate air quality, soil health, and the water cycle. Keeping them standing is one of our best natural climate solutions.
At the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), over 100 world leaders pledged to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030, but deforestation has continued year over year. Under our current economic system, forests are often more valuable cut and cleared than left standing.
But this year, a new solution has appeared on the horizon: a fund to incentivize tropical forest conservation.
The tropical deforestation crisis
In 2024, the tropics lost 6.7 million hectares of primary forest – old forest that has been relatively undisturbed by humans – at a rate of 18 soccer fields per minute. It was a record-breaking year for primary forest loss and the fastest rate of primary forest deforestation on record, with much of the increase driven by wildfire.
Bolivia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo saw some of the highest levels of primary forest loss on record. But Brazil, the world’s largest tropical forest nation and home to over half of the Amazon rainforest, took the biggest hit. Over 40% of all tropical primary forest loss in 2024 occurred in Brazil.
The main forces behind forest loss worldwide are all human activities: agricultural expansion, mining, logging, and infrastructure development. Dr. Ludmila Rattis, Assistant Scientist and General Coordinator of Woodwell’s Tanguro Field Station, works on the Brazilian agricultural frontier to understand the impacts of agricultural intensification.
“Today, the number one driver of deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado is land grabbing,” Rattis says.
Land grabbing refers to the control and clearing of large plots of land by a person or entity without clear rights to do so. In Brazil, land grabbing has been common since colonial times, when legislation restricted access to land. Today, nearly 50 million hectares of public forest in the Brazilian Amazon remains “undesignated” – meaning the land has not been formally designated by the government for a specific purpose – which leaves it highly vulnerable to grabbing.
Brazil is a major producer of agricultural commodities including beef, soybeans, and coffee. Because the country has a large amount of undesignated land with unclear regulations, land grabbing for agricultural production is profitable – and cleared forests are more financially valuable than standing ones. Brazilian law also allows the legal deforestation of some trees on private property, as long as 80% of forests on the property remain standing.
In late 2023, the Brazilian government proposed the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) as a new financial solution that would pay tropical countries to keep their forests standing. Designed to generate and distribute $4 billion each year, it would complement other sources of finance by focusing incentives on forest conservation.
How does the TFFF work?
The TFFF is a global investment fund that proposes to use finance and investment strategies to generate annual payments to tropical forest countries that conserve and restore their forests. First introduced at COP28, the fund would provide tropical forest nations with large-scale, predictable payments based on how much forest cover they maintain.
The fund will raise money from both the public and private sectors, starting with $125 billion – $25 billion from government sponsors in long-term loans and guarantees and $100 billion from long-term, low-interest bond sales to private sector investors. The money raised will be invested into bonds with a high rate of return to generate revenue. Part of the revenue will be used to pay down interest on loans from bond-holders and government sponsors, with the remaining earnings being allocated to fund annual payments to tropical forest nations.
Frances Seymour, Senior Policy Advisor at Woodwell, is working on forest finance priorities leading up to COP30 this year.
“The innovative feature is the use of public capital to reduce the risk of non-repayment to private investors,” Seymour says.
The return generated by the fund would be paid out to eligible tropical forest countries at an initial rate of $4 per hectare of forest. It would be distributed to eligible governments with a deduction applied for every hectare deforested or degraded.
In order to be eligible for the fund, a country must be a developing nation with tropical or subtropical broadleaf moist forests – forests characterized by year-round warmth, high levels of precipitation, and trees with broad, flat leaves. Additionally, the deforestation rate during the year the country adheres to the TFFF must be lower than the previous year.
To track deforestation rates, participating nations would need to use remote sensing technologies such as satellite imagery. For example, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) monitors tree cover loss using satellite-based systems. Countries that do not have the ability to monitor their own forests would be allowed to use approved third-party methods and data.
How many trees make a forest?
Areas eligible for forest payments must also have more than 20% canopy cover, which refers to the percentage of the upper layer of trees in a forest that obscures light passing through. But some people argue that the proposed threshold isn’t high enough.
Scientists at Woodwell Climate, including Associate Scientist Glenn Bush and Research Assistant Patrick Fedor, are pushing for higher canopy cover thresholds for the fund.
“The problem is that most of us who work in tropical forests and know them well would say that a patch of land which only has 20% of forest cover isn’t a forest anymore – it’s a field,” Bush says.
A landscape with a few large trees scattered around may have canopies that register at 20% cover despite no longer functioning as a forest. Scientists recommend increasing the canopy cover threshold to 60% or even 80% to focus on high-value intact tropical forest areas and prevent cleared areas from qualifying for TFFF benefits.
In a memo to TFFF Secretariat Andre Aquino, Bush and Fedor assessed management costs and social benefits of conserving tropical forests in Brazil and the DRC. They found that with raised canopy thresholds and adjusted payments, the TFFF could help protect more biodiverse and climate resilient forests without increasing the fund’s total budget. The counter argument, however, is that any forests below the increased threshold may face a higher risk of being permanently converted to another use rather than restored if not included in the scheme.
“The biggest thing is to increase canopy cover because we want resilient forests,” Fedor says. “We’re trying to keep forests fully intact.”
COP30 and the future of tropical forests
While the specifics of the fund aren’t fully agreed upon, the general consensus is that the global effort would make a significant positive change for tropical forest nations. By providing a source of predictable budget support for forest conservation and management, tropical forest nations could bring environmental goals to the forefront of government policy and action.
“This is a really long-term commitment to what could be potentially transformational change,” Bush says.
If successful, the model has the potential to apply to other efforts beyond forest conservation. The TFFF model, Seymour says, could be replicated to finance efforts such as girls’ education or eradicating malaria, two areas that are facing pressures from recent reductions in development aid from wealthy countries.
The proposed TFFF model also puts an emphasis on Indigenous communities and their contribution to forest conservation by requiring a minimum of 20% of annual payments to each country – a global amount totalling at least $800 million annually – to be allocated to Indigenous and local forest communities.
“The focus on Indigenous Peoples and reinforcing land rights is really critical,” Bush says. “That’s the first time a fund of this sort has actually involved Indigenous Peoples groups in its design in such an early stage.”
Research has shown that Indigenous communities are the key to protecting tropical forests. Managing over half of the world’s remaining intact forests, Indigenous tropical forest communities experience more carbon capture, less carbon loss, and less tree cover loss than other lands. When Indigenous land rights are enforced, forests thrive.
“It’s an innovative policy that’s hopefully going to promote good change and good environmental outcomes,” Fedor says. “It changes the economics of a forest’s value.”
During New York Climate Week in September, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced that Brazil itself would invest $1 billion in sponsor capital, challenging other governments to do their part as well. The Brazilian government plans to formally launch TFFF at COP30 in Belém, Brazil in November. With the world’s biggest climate event hosted in the world’s biggest tropical forest nation, tropical forests will feature heavily on the international agenda. Roughly 45,000 policymakers, government negotiators, scientists, activists, and Indigenous leaders will be descending on the city at the mouth of the Amazon, placing a major spotlight on one of the very regions the TFFF is designed to protect.
“If there were ever a moment when a big idea like this could get the political and financial support that it needs to get off the ground,” Seymour says, “this is it.”
Behind the levee: The forgotten communities at risk in Massachusetts
Catherine Gonzalez knows the water always wins.
She remembers being 5, riding on her father’s shoulders as he trudged through chest-high water to escape to higher ground in Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico. As Hurricane Hortense barreled through in September 1996, the river overflowed its banks, taking her home and belongings, but thankfully not her family. Others weren’t as fortunate. After 20 inches of rain, flash flooding, and mudslides, at least 18 people were dead.
In the wake of the devastation, Gonzalez and her family followed relatives to Chicopee, a town defined by its relationship to two rivers – the Chicopee and the Connecticut. A place less prone to hurricanes. A place that was supposed to be safe. But Gonzalez worries it brings dangers of its own.
Read more on The Boston Globe.