UNDP NDC Insights Series – Issue No. 8 (November 2025)
Title: Focus on Land Use, Land-Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) & Country Spotlight: Liberia
Overall status (as of 15 Nov 2025)
- 117 parties have submitted new or updated NDCs in the 2025 cycle (including 15 G20 members, 16 LDCs, 21 SIDS), covering ~73% of global GHG emissions.
- Recent major submissions: China, EU, Indonesia, South Africa. Only five G20 members are left (Argentina, India, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, and Saudi Arabia).
- Current NDCs, if fully implemented, would lead to 2.3–2.5 °C warming by 2100 (improved from last year’s 2.6–2.8 °C, but still far from 1.5 °C). A temporary overshoot of 1.5 °C is now considered inevitable, yet it remains possible to return below it with rapid scaling of all solutions — especially forests.
Four major emerging trends in LULUCF across the new NDCs
- Near-universal inclusion & stronger targets
- 97% of submitted NDCs include LULUCF (75% as part of economy-wide targets, 68% with specific sectoral targets).
- Many countries added LULUCF targets for the first time (e.g., Bahamas net-zero LULUCF by 2050, UAE 160 million mangroves by 2030, Marshall Islands, Andorra, Zambia).
- Forests are explicitly recognised in 100% of NDCs
- Every single new NDC explicitly mentions forests and their contribution to both mitigation and adaptation — a historic first.
- Wider scope now includes wildfire prevention, disaster resilience, and detailed costing/finance needs.
- REDD+ is gaining strong momentum
- 32% of new NDCs (especially developing countries) directly reference REDD+ with greater detail than ever, citing national REDD+ strategies, safeguards, and results-based payments as central to implementation.
- Examples: Indonesia reinvesting Norway & GCF payments into social forestry and fire prevention; Ecuador using GCF payments to support Indigenous communities and women.
- Growing leadership of Indigenous Peoples and local communities
- Increasingly recognised as key actors in design, implementation, monitoring, and benefit-sharing.
- Highlighted in NDCs from Cambodia, Ecuador, Indonesia, Brazil, Bangladesh, Belize, Angola, etc.
- Concrete examples: Cambodian Indigenous communities protecting >6,000 ha with UNDP-supported grants; Ecuador embedding ancestral knowledge into forest governance; Brazil supporting Indigenous women entrepreneurs in the Amazon.
Country Spotlight: Liberia’s NDC 3.0
- Strategic pivot: turn forests (currently ~2/3 of national emissions) from a net emissions source into a net sink.
- Key forest/LULUCF commitments:
- Reduce the national deforestation rate by 10%
- Expand protected areas by 200,000 hectares
- From 2028, all new agricultural concessions will be only on degraded (not primary) land
- Overall ambition:
- 64% GHG reduction below BAU by 2035
- Net-zero by 2050
- 75% renewable electricity, 150 MW new capacity, clean cooking for 200,000 households, 2,000 electric tricycles
- Strong integration of gender, youth, local communities, Rio conventions, and SDGs.
- Supported by UNDP-led UN system collaboration under Climate Promise.
Other notable tools & initiatives mentioned
- UNDP’s PLANT tool: a digital platform helping 63 countries analyse forest mitigation potential and prepare for carbon markets and ETF reporting.
Key message: Forests and nature-based solutions have moved from the margins to the heart of global climate plans. Ambition and political will are rising fast, but the pace of implementation must accelerate dramatically, especially on halting deforestation and empowering Indigenous and local communities, to keep 1.5 °C within reach after the expected temporary overshoot.