Rwanda's NDC 3.0 targets conditional 53% cut in GHG emissions by 2035

Rwanda has released its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) 3.0, setting an economy-wide conditional mitigation target of 53% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2035 compared to a business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, a significant increase from the 38% target for 2030 under NDC 2.0. This new target is comprehensive, covering key sectors (land use, land-use change, and forestry, energy, agriculture, waste, industrial process and product use).

Rwanda's NDC 3.0 estimates that total net GHG emissions (including carbon sinks from the agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sectors) should soar from 4.15 MtCO₂eq in 2015 (gross emissions of 8.7 MtCO₂eq) to 27.9 MtCO₂eq in 2035 (32.9 MtCO₂eq gross) under a BAU scenario. Unconditional measures should cut net GHG emissions by 7% (-1.8 MtCO₂eq) to 26 MtCO₂eq in 2035 but conditional measures could help reduce an additional 46% (-13 MtCO₂eq, including -5.5 MtCO₂eq from energy, -5.4 MtCO₂eq from agriculture, -2.1 MtCO₂eq from LULUCF, -1.6 MtCO₂eq from waste and -0.3 MtCO₂eq from IPPU). Conditional and unconditional measures could cut net GHG emissions by 14.9 MtCO₂eq to 13 MtCO₂eq.

In the energy sector, Rwanda aims to boost renewable power generation from hydropower and solar (5-fold increase between 2015 and 2030, from around 270 GWh and 1.44 TWh). The country aims to shift "away from imported fossil fuel use, notably HFO and diesel in electricity generation and gasoline and diesel within transport, towards increased use of domestic zero- and low carbon sources".