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News : Work of the CGE in supporting developing countries prepare their national communications and biennial update reports

Technical resources for implementing the measurement, reporting and verification arrangements under the Convention and the enhanced transparency framework under the Paris Agreement.
Work of the CGE in supporting developing countries prepare their national communications and biennial update reports

 

The Consultative Group of Experts organized a side-event to present its achievements, impact and lessons learned from supporting developing country Parties to prepare their national communications (NCs) and biennial update reports (BURs) on Monday 10 December 2018 at COP24 in Katowice, Poland. In addition, Kenya and Lebanon shared key findings and the process they followed to prepare their national reports.
The CGE outlined its accomplishments between 2014 – 2018 including: training over 2,000 experts through regional hands-on training workshops and webinars on different themes of NC and BURs and training another 385 experts for the technical analysis of BURs, and developing and disseminating online technical resources and other guidance toolkits. The CGE highlighted two important roles that it could play: act as a bridge between the intergovernmental process and the practitioner on the ground, and actively engage with experts from developing countries in the implementation of the existing measurement, reporting and verification arrangements. The CGE noted that there is a continued need and demand, with greater emphasis on putting in place sustainable institutional arrangements, to enhance the national capacities of developing country Parties to prepare their NCs and BURs.
 
Lebanon shared the key findings from their greenhouse gas inventory and their mitigation assessment. It also shared some of the key challenges in preparing its BUR – mostly resulting from a lack of proper institutional arrangements in place for data collection such as underdeveloped arrangements for monitoring and collection of data for the preparation of the national GHG inventory, and limited data on the progress of policy implementation. In addition, it was also noted there were challenges in reporting needs and support received due to different definitions and methodologies. Lessons learned from Lebanon included: (i) maintaining a continuous process for preparing such national reports; (ii) defining clear roles and responsibilities amongst teams; (iii) setting clear expectations of the end product; and (iv) developing a systematic data collection process.  Lebanon encouraged the CGE to continue providing tools to capture support received for climate change and track impact of policies and strategies.
 
Kenya shared key findings from their second NCs and also the process of preparing their initial and second NCs. It was noted that institutional arrangements for reporting and data collection were a challenge, mainly due to the lack of awareness amongst the data providers. However, through Kenya’s national law on climate change, awareness has been raised in various ministries on climate change issues, which in turn has facilitated in the development of a system for reporting. Through this process, institutional arrangements for reporting are now becoming more permanent and various sectoral ministries are starting to provide information for the next NC and first BUR.  This has resulted in a mainstreamed approach for developing climate change action plans amongst various ministries.
 
One of the key takeaway messages from the event was that with every cycle of the preparation of NCs and BURs can contribute towards a country’s effort to develop and maintain a long-term institutional arrangement for reporting.  This can result in a high-quality data and analytical assessments on climate action, which in turn could feed into national planning processes with a data-backed and science-informed policies and plans.
 
Keep following our Facebook page Mitigation & Transparency Exchange for more insights and discussions into the work of the CGE.
Representatives from Kenya, the CGE and Lebanon presented at the side-event.