Despite being a Least Developed Country, Ethiopia has already placed itself on the path to undertake a substantial national program of climate action, outlined in the Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy (CRGE). At 1.8 tCO₂e, Ethiopia’s per capita GHG emissions are insignificant compared to total global emissions. Ethiopia’s greatest emission reduction potential is in the agriculture and forestry sectors, constituting 85% of emissions in 2010. An important component of Ethiopia’s contribution includes actions to build resilience and enhance adaptation to the impacts of climate change. Ethiopia also seeks to maximise the synergies between adaptation and mitigation, especially involving agriculture and forests

Overview of Ethiopia's Updated NDC (2020):
The results of the analysis conducted for updating Ethiopia's NDC in 2020 shows that emissions levels of the first NDC are actually lower for the base year of 2010. These changes are due to methodological improvements in inventory/GHG, global warming potentials and country specific parameters for livestocks and biomass. Therefore, Ethiopia's revised BaU emissions in 2030 are lower than the projections initially presented in the first NDC.

The updatedNDC shows increased ambition due to: the higher robustness of GHG emissions pathways and targets and improvements in methodology, as well as the integration of Ethiopia's Low Emission Development Strategy to 2050. Better adaptability of the model to potential future changes and an enhanced ability to track progress on mitigation actions. For the first time, Ethiopia proposes an absolute emission reduction in the conditional scenario compared to historical base year emissions for 2010. Thereis also a clear demarcation between unconditional and conditional internventions, with a meaning domestic contribution. The revised NDC also commits to exploring further ambition increases during the NDC commitment period.