Cambodia’s Third Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0).

Cambodia’s Third Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0) reaffirms the country’s strengthened climate ambition, integrating mitigation, adaptation, and enabling measures across key sectors. It emphasizes climate-resilient development to safeguard communities, ecosystems, and economic growth from increasing climate risks such as floods, droughts, heat waves, and sea-level rise. The NDC outlines deepened mitigation targets across energy, transport, agriculture, forestry, and waste, supported by expanded governance, capacity building, and inclusive stakeholder engagement, aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 16% unconditionally and 55% conditionally by 2035 compared to the BAU scenario. Key mitigation actions include scaling renewable energy to 72–80%, phasing out coal, promoting electric mobility, reducing clinker in cement, and halving deforestation by 2030. Adaptation priorities span health, WASH, infrastructure, livelihoods, disaster risk management, social protection, food systems, and air quality. Importantly, it introduces social protection, social services, and child protection as adaptation sectors for the first time, recognizing the disproportionate climate impacts on vulnerable populations.
The NDC emphasizes inclusivity, integrating gender equality, youth, Indigenous Peoples, and persons with disabilities, and aligns with SDGs. The NDC also underscores the importance of food systems and nutrition in climate resilience. It commits to shifting consumption towards healthier, more nutritious, and sustainable diets by improving access to diverse foods, regulating unhealthy and ultra-processed products, and strengthening links between nutrition and social protection—such as home-grown school feeding programs. The NDC further promotes reducing food loss and waste, supporting domestic fruit and vegetable production, and expanding fortified rice use to improve public health while contributing to Cambodia’s climate goals.