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Long before Paris, the concept of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) emerged at the climate change conference in Warsaw in 2013 and further developed in Lima in 2014. For the first time, all parties were invited to submit their fair share contributions towards reaching the goals of global decarbonisation and climate resilience.

This paved the way for the 2015 landmark agreement in Paris, where a universally binding treaty to combat climate change was adopted. In light of the unprecedented participation in the INDC process, all parties accepted ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ and worked to achieve a breakthrough in Paris. However, the level of ambition in this current round of NDCs is not sufficient to hold global temperature rise to well below 2 or even 1.5 degrees. Therefore, parties committed themselves to submit, review and update NDCs every five years from 2020 onwards, and report on them in a common transparency framework. In addition, every new NDC must be more ambitious than the preceding one.

The next steps are crucial. The Paris Agreement needs to be implemented along with the NDCs that lie at its heart and encompass national policies, measures, and actions in all countries.

In this context, the German Federal Ministry of Environment (BMUB) set up an NDC Support Cluster as part of its International Climate Initiative (IKI). The cluster pools together projects from around 30 different countries. It aims to support developing countries in preparing the implementation and rapid attainment of the goals set in their respective NDCs. The NDC Support Cluster is structured around four thematic fields: the political and institutional landscape, sectoral approaches, financing, and data and transparency. Depending on the needs of the respective partner governments, the cluster provides guidance and advisory services on cross-cutting capacity building and knowledge management; while the core competencies for implementing sector strategies lie within the respective line ministries it is key that NDC implementation work keeps close ties with the government bodies in charge of NDC coordination, e.g. Environmental Ministries or National Climate Change Commissions.

Several implementing organisations are involved in the NDC cluster. The cluster is working closely with the International Partnership on Mitigation and MRV, which will play a pivotal role in supporting and facilitating knowledge exchange and learning processes, and the NDC Partnership.

In addition, the cluster organisations will offer a toolbox presenting structured and easy access to the latest and most useful instruments for NDC implementation. In parallel, it will establish an open helpdesk, operated in collaboration with the LEDS Global Partnership, designed to flexibly support domestic practitioners and an enhanced global good practice database.

The cluster builds upon comprehensive knowledge of all institutions involved and their experience with various systems, such as on Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), Low Emissions Development Strategies (LEDS) or Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV). Its work will begin in the second half of 2016.