Burundi has made commitments to the international community to contribute to the fight against climate change, through its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) submitted in 2015 at the twenty-first Conference of the Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) held in Paris in 2015. It became a Determined Contribution in 2018 after Burundi ratified the Paris Agreement.

The Paris Agreement warns of the threat of climate change and indicates that the GHG emission reductions announced in existing commitments are not sufficient to keep global warming below the 2°C target. To do so, it invites Parties to make more efforts for a transition that would allow 1.5°C to be reached.

In this context, it is useful and urgent to see how countries are implementing their commitments by implementing paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 9 and 13 of Article 4 of the Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement requires signatory countries to review their NDCs every 5 years. In 2020, countries are therefore invited to submit revised NDCs based on their 2015 contributions to the UNFCCC secretariat. For countries that have chosen a time horizon of 2030, the year 2020 is a first opportunity to reaffirm their commitment to effectively combat global warming by communicating their 2015 NDC again in 2020.

Although Burundi chose a time horizon of 2030 in the 2015 NDC, the Government wanted to review its commitments by basing them on more current data as well as better alignment of the NDC with the guidelines of the Paris Agreement, in particular with regard to the rules book adopted at COP24, for the 2020 NDC. In the 2015 NDC, Burundi committed to reducing its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 3% by 2030 without conditions and by 20% under conditions.