Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and Health
GCHA and its members are committed to ensuring that the linkages between the climate crisis and health, and the health co-benefits of climate action are recognized in national, regional, and international decision-making and action.
GCHA regularly produces scorecards for policymakers to assess the extent to which governments’ NDCs recognise and respond to the abundant linkages with health and air quality, and recommendations for embedding health into national climate plans.
Check out the resources below and see the analysis for your country.
Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs):
Plans that each country must develop outlining the actions and commitments that it will take to deliver the goal of the Paris Agreement (international treaty on climate change) of limiting global temperature rise to well below 2C, and preferably to 1.5C.
Healthy NDC Scorecard
The GCHA Healthy NDCs Scorecard is a tool for policymakers produced by GCHA in 2023 and 2021 and assesses the extent to which governments’ national climate commitments recognise and respond to the abundant linkages with health.
Ensuring the integration of health into climate policy protects populations, maximises economic benefits, and builds public backing for ambitious climate policies which are so urgently needed.
Clean Air NDC Scorecard
Air pollution and climate change are both driven by fossil fuel combustion. Meanwhile, climate change worsens existing air pollution. These interlinkages, and the impacts of poor air quality on human health, demonstrate the need to embed air quality actions in NDCs.
The 2023 Clean Air NDC Scorecard is a tool for policymakers developed by GCHA to help them assess whether actions to achieve clean air have been successful at the national level and assesses the integration of air quality considerations into NDCs.
Healthy NDCs 3.0: Embedding Health in National Climate Plans for 2035
This 2025 report provides an assessment of recently submitted NDCs to reveal examples of good practice and issues where greater ambition is needed on a global scale, to produce recommendations for policymakers in a year when ambitious climate plans are needed more urgently than ever.
Other press releases, events, journal articles and media coverage
Understanding NDCs- shareable materials
To help our members and wider audiences better understand what NDCs are and why they are important, GCHA has developed a range of materials in English and Spanish that can be downloaded and shared freely. See these below.
