UN Climate Change News, 12 November 2025 - 2025 marked a pivotal year for both the Kyoto Protocol and Paris Agreement compliance mechanisms, with the former concluding its work in response to its mandates and the latter entering a new phase of supporting Parties as they implement and comply with their obligations under the Paris Agreement.
PAICC-15
Building on the outcomes of its previous meeting in July, the Paris Agreement Implementation and Compliance Committee (PAICC) met in September - welcoming the progress made by Parties in communicating their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and submitting their mandatory reports and information under the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF).
Since the conclusion of PAICC-14 on 18 July, a further 33 Parties submitted their NDCs to the secretariat, bringing the total up to 65 (with 64 in time to be included in the 2025 NDC Synthesis Report) - along with 5 more Parties that submitted their Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs), bringing the number of mandatory BTRs to 92, by the conclusion of PAICC-15.
The Committee also reviewed responses submitted by 63 Parties regarding their NDCs and seven Parties regarding their BTRs, which highlighted a range of challenges encountered in the preparation of their NDCs and/or BTRs, as well as their plans to submit these as soon as feasible. An anonymized list of these challenges have been included in the Committee's annual report. The Committee will continue to assess whether these challenges relate to issues of a systemic nature that may require further attention.
For the first time, the Committee engaged in direct consultations with Parties concerned, marking a significant step in its facilitative approach. Four Parties participated in these first consultations at PAICC-15 in October, sharing their challenges and constraints in submitting their NDCs and BTRs. The Committee underscored its commitment to helping Parties overcome these challenges, and thanked representatives of several finance, technology and capacity-building bodies and arrangements under the Paris Agreement that participated in some of these consultations. The Committee will develop a practical guide or tool directing Parties to available resources that can support the preparation of their NDCs and BTRs. The Committee will continue to work with Parties until the issues under consideration are resolved. PAICC-16 will be held at the end of March next year.
Meetings of the KPCC
Alongside the critical work of the PAICC, this year marked the twentieth year of operation for the Compliance Committee under the Kyoto Protocol (KPCC). At the 42nd meeting of the enforcement branch and the 28th meeting of the facilitative branch - both held in September 2025 - the two branches completed their core activities, including the resolution of its last question of implementation by the enforcement branch and the completion of the analysis of the remaining annual review reports containing supplementary information under the Kyoto Protocol by the facilitative branch.
With the additional period for fulfilling commitments under the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol having expired, and no third commitment period in place, the plenary of the KPCC, at its 27th meeting in September, concluded that there is currently no need to schedule further meetings. Future sessions of the plenary or its branches will be convened only if deemed necessary by the KPCC bureau, with the assistance of the secretariat. In light of these developments, the Committee recommended that the CMP consider the question of the future of the KPCC.
In the spirit of learning from experience across institutions and bodies, the PAICC agreed to convene an intersessional online meeting with members and alternates of the KPCC facilitative branch to hear about their experience in their analysis of transparency reports. This may prove useful to the PAICC's consideration of technical expert review reports under the ETF which the PAICC plans to advance intersessionally with a view to exploring possible approaches for identifying significant and persistent inconsistencies with the Modalities, Procedures, and Guidelines for the ETF.
