| Overview : Background: Working in 170 countries and territories to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and exclusion, UNDP plays a critical role in helping countries/territories achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UNDP’s 2022-2025 Strategic Plan emphasizes the critical links between environmental sustainability, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and broader efforts to achieve the goals of the 2030 Agenda and Paris Agreement. Climate change could drive an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030. One of its key priorities for the next 10 years is to support countries/territories accelerate ambitious action on climate change. Climate change is the single greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, threatening water and food security, health, livelihoods, and the safety of billions of people together with drastic negative impact on global ecosystem balance. UNDP’s ambitious “Climate Promise” supports over 120 countries/territories to enhance their climate ambitions under the Paris Agreement, with focus on greater emissions reduction and resilience building. The next phase of the Climate Promise will focus on implementation of their national climate pledges, or Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), while advancing advocacy on climate change, and long-term planning to ensure inclusive climate action at the speed and scale required to keep global temperature below 1.5°C. Achieving carbon neutrality in the second half of the century by all countries/territories is a crucial requirement set by the Paris Agreement to avoid the irreversible global climate change. UNDP is well positioned to enable such work through cooperation on HQ, Regional and Country Office (CO) levels, forming an interconnected system of knowledge exchange and expertise delivery enabling the cutting-edge climate policy advocacy, development, and implementation. The Climate Promise provides direct financial and technical support to countries on NDC implementation in the context of national development priorities. As part of this portfolio initiative, a contribution from the Japan Supplementary Budget (JSB) of $42M to COs and global team is expected. This contribution will provide financial and technical assistance to 23 countries/territories around the world and serve as the catalyst to showcase NDC implementation as part of the UNDP flagship initiative. The JSB component seeks to respond to the status and context of the country’s NDC process and advance the implementation of the country’s NDC measures and realisation of its targets under two key pillars: clean energy and net-zero pathways; and helping vulnerable and fragile settings to be more resilient to climate impacts. There is a strong demand for engagement of Japanese counterparts in this process, and improved visibility. |
