A Virtual Climate Ambition Summit was held on April 23, 2025, hosted by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, focusing on climate action ahead of COP30.

The summit, lasting two hours, aimed to build momentum for national climate action plans before COP30, which is scheduled to take place in Brazil in November 2025.

During the summit, President Lula emphasized the need for COP30 to be a significant collective effort to fulfill climate commitments, urging all countries to present new Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with 2035 carbon reduction targets.

Currently, only about 10% of the 196 signatories of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change have submitted revised NDCs, with a deadline that has been extended from February to September 2025.

Guterres called on leaders to submit robust climate action plans aligned with the Paris Agreement, warning that even achieving current NDCs would still result in catastrophic global warming of 2.6°C.

NDCs are critical as they represent each country's targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to 1.5°C, as outlined in the Paris Agreement.

Seventeen heads of state and government from major economies participated in the summit, including leaders from China, the African Union, and the European Union, all emphasizing the need for stronger NDCs.

Chinese President Xi Jinping highlighted the importance of translating climate goals into actionable results and committed to announcing China's NDCs before COP30.

The urgency for climate action is underscored by a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which projects that 2024 will be the first year with a global temperature exceeding 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, marking it as the warmest year in 175 years of records.

Recent data reveals that every year for the last decade has ranked among the ten warmest on record, with alarming trends including significant losses in Arctic and Antarctic ice extent and rising sea levels.

Long-term global warming is estimated at 1.34 to 1.41°C compared to the 1850-1900 baseline, highlighting the alarming trends in climate indicators such as rising CO2 levels and record warm years.