SDG 13 – Climate Action

SDG 13 ’Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts’ is the only SDG directly aimed at addressing climate change. At the same time, climate change issues cut across the whole 2030 Agenda.

In the updated NDC submissions, 14% of activities addressed Goal 13 compared with 8% in the first NDC submissions. In the first NDCs, countries were prioritising targets '13.3 Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change issues' (40%) and '13.2 Integrate climate measures in national policy making' (36%), linking these to 'Mainstreaming' (28%), 'Awareness-raising on climate change impacts' (16%) and 'Adaptive capacity enhancement' (14%) as key strategies for climate action. In the updated NDCs, countries are prioritising targets '13.3 Improve education, awareness-raising and human and institutional capacity on climate change issues' (43%) and '13.1 Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related and natural disasters' (34%), linking these to 'Adaptive capacity enhancement' (17%) 'Strengthened institutional capacity for adaptation' (16%) and 'Disaster and risk reduction' (15%) as key strategies for climate action.

Regarding first NDC submissions, activities related to this Goal are prioritising adaptation with 74% of the activities, while 10% focus on mitigation. Meanwhile, for updated NDC submissions 72% prioritise adaptation and 9% mitigation. The share of quantified activities has increased from 5% in the first NDCs to 5% in the updated NDC submissions.