Care About Climate's NDC Equity Tracker Allows for Youth Advocacy, Policy Making and Progress on Climate Action

Earth Rising is proud to support the work of Care About Climate, a youth-led network empowering young people to shape equitable climate policies around the world. Through this partnership, Care About Climate (CAC) has expanded its NDC Equity Tracker—a publicly accessible database that enables youth to critically engage with their countries’ Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). This project bridges the gap between grassroots action and international policy, elevating voices too often left out of the climate conversation.

Over the past year, Care About Climate helped complete 23 youth- and gender-focused analyses of NDCs. The first round of the 2024 cycle added 12 countries to the Tracker ahead of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan—bringing the total number of country analyses to 84. Ahead of the conference, CAC published a snapshot report of the findings to inform conversations among United Nations agencies, party delegates, and civil-society leaders. Together, these insights provided the basis for the “NDC Youth Clause” campaign—a call for countries to include intergenerational justice principles into their NDCs. At a live side event at COP29, the UK became the first country to adopt the Youth Clause.

At COP29, CAC sent a delegation of ten young advocates to share their work on the global stage. The Tracker was also cited in the 2023 and 2024 ACE Report as a best practice, a significant moment of recognition for youth-led climate monitoring.

In 2025, the Dominican Republic used the Tracker’s findings during a public workshop to help inform their updated NDC. Although only 13 countries met the February deadline for submitting new NDCs, CAC supported analyses of 11 of those—including the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, Botswana, Lesotho, Canada, Cuba, Ecuador, New Zealand, Maldives, and Japan. Many past CAC Ambassadors have now helped shape the inclusion of equity considerations in their countries’ NDCs 

Since the start of the grant period, with support from its network of Ambassadors, CAC has hosted more than a dozen NDC-focused workshops. These included training sessions for European and U.S. chapters of the Climate Reality Project, two events with UN Women centered on the NDC Equity Tracker, six Zoom gatherings for Ambassadors to share Tracker findings and advocacy opportunities, a collaborative event with UNFCCC Youth4Capacity on NDCs, and a training session for UNFCCC Focal Points on the NDC Youth Clause. Key findings from the workshops include the significant lack of awareness among young people about what governments are doing on climate and how NDCs function. This shows the crucial role of the Tracker’s findings and recommendations as a launch point for youth-and-gender-centered advocacy.

Through their multifaceted work, Care About Climate continues to demonstrate that when young people have the tools, knowledge, and platform to lead, they can help shape a more equitable and sustainable future for all.