A Nationally Determined Contribution, which is a country’s own climate plan under the Paris Agreement: what it will cut, by when, and what it will do to adapt. Every country writes its own and submits a new one every five years.
The phrase "nationally determined" is the whole design. There are no assigned targets and no country is told what its number should be. Each government decides what it can commit to, submits it, and is then measured against the collective result rather than against an allocation.
The current round carries 2035 targets and was due in February 2025. Most countries missed it. The UNFCCC’s synthesis report, using a cut-off of 30 September 2025, covered 64 Parties representing around 30 per cent of global emissions in 2019, which tells you how partial the picture still was a year ago.
Deadlines here are guidance rather than enforceable cut-offs, which is worth knowing before reading too much into a missed date.