INDCs: A critical — and critically misunderstood — part of the COP21 climate agreement

Intended Nationally Determined Contributions are essentially the backbone of the Paris climate agreement, writes Carl Mercer, advocacy and communications specialist for the climate change and disaster risk reduction team at the U.N. Development Program. Why are they so important?

By Carl Mercer // 07 December 2015

A few months ago, I wrote a post about the jargon around climate change, and my concern that our language can sometimes be prohibitively out of touch with everyday people.

Today let me expand upon that and elaborate on another term that remains one of the least known, yet critically important, elements of the deal being brokered at the Paris climate change conference: INDCs, or Intended Nationally Determined Contributions.

INDCs are the actions and targets that countries have signalled they will undertake to help keep global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius. While INDCs are not legally binding, and thus not commitments, per se, they will ultimately become part of a (potentially) legally binding agreement coming out of COP21.