Cities remain central to the climate agenda: they concentrate rising risks, trillions in exposed assets and most future growth. The third round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs 3.0) shows a historic jump in how countries are internalizing this urban reality into their national contributions toward global efforts for climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Prepared by UN-Habitat with the support of University of Southern Denmark and Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy (GCoM), this new global snapshot looks in detail at how 67 countries incorporated urban climate strategies into their NDCs 3.0 – from how they describe risks and challenges, to what concrete climate responses they commit to in key urban sectors, and how those responses are expected to be implemented in practice.
This snapshot showcases the first global overview of urban content in NDCs for COP30 – and paves the way for the full Technical Report to be released at WUF13 (May 2026), with comprehensive analysis of all second- and third-generation NDCs submitted to the UNFCCC registry.
