• Measuring progress toward the NDC should not start from scratch, but instead build upon existing national systems and processes for measuring and reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other relevant information.
    • What is already working well in your country in terms of reporting to the UNFCCC? Do you have clear mandates or legal instruments in place? Do the right institutions have the training and skills for monitoring and reporting?
    • Does your country already have a suitable system in place for NDC implementation? Are there any “upgrades” to the system that you are planning?
    • Do you already have a system or process in place for capturing sub-national progress?
  • With respect to mitigation targets, are there any issues on which you would like to have specific guidance on measuring and reporting?
  • Many countries included adaptation in their NDC. What key information are you planning to collect on adaptation for NDC reporting purposes?
  • Is any mechanism being considered to streamline and/or align tracking and reporting of data for NDCs and the SDGs? If not, what are the key barriers that you anticipate to linking progress efforts on the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030?
6 Mar 2017 - 24 Mar 2017

Comments (6)

Rebecca Carman
Rebecca Carman Moderator

Welcome to Phase 5 of our e-discussion on NDC implementation, which focuses on Monitoring and Transparency. We invite you over the next three weeks to share your experiences and thoughts. We have provided some initial questions to kick off the discussion, but we also invite you to ask questions and share any relevant examples of challenges and successes from your country or institution.

We thank you in advance for your participation and inputs!

Lorenzo Eguren
Dear colleagues,
I have answered bellow the Discussion questions to provide some insights about what is happening in Peru regarding Preparation for NDC Implementation 

 o What is already working well in your country in terms of reporting to the UNFCCC? Do you have clear mandates or legal instruments in place? Do the right institutions have the training and skills for monitoring and reporting?

In December 2014, through a supreme decree N° 013-2014-MINAM, it was issued the provisions for the elaboration of the National Greenhouse Gases Inventory called INFOCARBONO. Since that date, the Ministry of Environment, have been providing support for its implementation. The main milestones on this regard are:

 

  1. Training activities have been held to ministries involved in the elaboration of the inventory.
  2. 9 Sectorial guidelines were developed explaining how to prepare National GHG inventories tailored to each Ministry and according to the Peruvian reality. These guidelines were formalized through ministerial resolution   Nº 168-2016-MINAM in July 2016.
  3. 2 national greenhouse gas inventories were updated (years 2000 and 2010) and other two were elaborated (years 2005 and 2012) with comprehensive spread sheets that include information from raw data coming from the primal source of information to emission reduction estimation.
  4. Web platform to public all information related to the National GHG inventories preparation and results which also include guidelines and spreadsheets. The web page is very important as it is a tool to stock all the knowledge achieved in National GHG inventories and is a big step towards having a transparency system to report our progress in our NDC and UNFCCC commitments.

 

The last, national GHG inventory, that belongs to year 2014, have been prepared in the framework of INFOCARBONO  and have used using all the tools described. Moreover, for the first time, competent sectors (ministries) have submitted their sectorial GHG inventories to the Ministry of Environment. As the national GRH inventory is the main tool to monitor our progress in our NDC, these advances are very relevant.

 

Nevertheless, Peru still depends from international cooperation to fund these activities, but happily the topic have appropriated increasingly in the government.   

 

  • Does your country already have a suitable system in place for NDC implementation? Are there any “upgrades” to the system that you are planning?

 Not yet, but the government have organized a multi-ministry group to develop a road map to achieve NDC. This group have been launched officially through Supreme resolution No. 005-2016-MINAM and have started in February 2017 and will last 18 months.  This work will be supported by several international cooperation projects that aim to support NDC implementation and MRVs. The road map will include organizational arrangements and enabling measures which will need to be supported with local and in some cases international funds.

 

  • Do you already have a system or process in place for capturing sub-national progress?

We have not already had a system or process in place for capturing sub-national progress. 

 

  • With respect to mitigation targets, are there any issues on which you would like to have specific guidance on measuring and reporting?

 

 We are in the stage of designing an MRV system for mitigation activities and Monitoring and evaluation system for adaptation activities. Our first ideas is to strength  National GHG inventories, to create a registry for emission reduction actions, to create a registry for carbon foot print of organizations and to support the development of MRV systems for specific initiatives as NAMAs and others. For all these ideas guidance are welcome. 

 

  • Many countries included adaptation in their NDC. What key information are you planning to collect on adaptation for NDC reporting purposes?

 In Peru, we have included adaptation in our NDC, and are focused in taking adaptation actions in 5 topics: water, agriculture, fishery, forestry and health. Now we are in the process of defining the actions related to the topics, and their goals and indicators. It is worth mentioning that the instrument for complying with the objectives established in the NDC in adaptation will be the National Adaptation Plan (NAP), whose formulation is in process and is part of the tasks set for the multi-ministry group to develop a road map to achieve NDC described above.

 

  • Is any mechanism being considered to streamline and/or align tracking and reporting of data for NDCs and the SDGs?  If not, what are the key barriers that you anticipate to linking progress efforts on the Paris Agreement and Agenda 2030? 

 We have not nothing concrete yet, but we are trying to include in the MRV system, how the initiatives contributes to the SDGs in a simple manner. One barrier identified is that merging the tracking system for NDC and SDGs could make more complex the development of a MRV system which main focus is monitoring emissions and emission reduction, and SDGs indicators will demand more information making more difficulty its implementation.

Regards,

 

Lorenzo Eguren

Project manager

Ministry of Environement -Peru

Rebecca Carman
Rebecca Carman Moderator

Dear Michael: Thanks very much for describing the impressive progress in Uganda to advance a national GHG inventory system as the foundation for your MRV system.  Do you have any kind of legislation or MOUs in place to ensure data gathering and sharing between Ministries and the Climate Change Department? Do you have any recommendations or challenges that you have faced in this context?

Lorenzo Eguren

Hi, Sina Wartmann here from Ricardo Energy and Environment.

 

The Paris Agreement refers to countries tracking progress in implementing and achieving their NDCs, but does not specify what this means in detail. It mentions reporting at least biennially (apart from Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States), including GHG inventories, mitigation, adaptation and support. What is to be reported in detail remains to be agreed. But we feel that tracking systems should be set up in a way which support tracking the effectiveness of NDC implementation and planning at the national level to the greatest extent possible, while still complying with international reporting requirements. This approach, which prioritises the national view and benefit, will help ensure buy-in from national stakeholders, thus helping to support a permanent, effective and efficient system. For example, the information from tracking could be used to adjust policy measures in a way that maximises their benefit, be this mitigation, adaptation or development measures.

 

We believe that to successfully steer NDC implementation, both a backward-looking and forward-looking view are important. Let us take mitigation as an example:

-          Looking back: How have GHG emissions at the national and sectoral levels developed over time and why? This would be indicated by the GHG inventory.

-          Looking forward: How should GHG emissions at the national and sectoral level develop in order to meet the target? How will they develop considering past GHG emission development and planned mitigation measures?

 

By combining these views, it is in principle possible to understand whether NDC implementation is going as expected or whether further action is necessary. However, an understanding of the reasons why GHG emissions have changed is also required to understand whether changes have been brought about by mitigation actions as intended and will thus be long-lasting (as opposed to emission reductions due to lower economic activity, which might not be long-lasting). For this purpose, indicators related to the implementation and estimated impacts of mitigation actions are required, as well as indicators on general national or sectoral developments are also required.

 

The combination of the backward and forward view is important as policy decisions on mitigation actions, their development and implementation take considerable time and there is always a delay in developing national GHG inventory data, often of 2 or 3 years.  To be able to effectively steer towards a future target, regularly updated projections can help to understand what the past developments mean for the future and what additional action is necessary to achieve targets. Relying solely on the GHG inventory to track progress towards NDC targets could mean that by the time it is clear that a country is not on track to meet a target, it may be too late to design and implement measures that will correct this.

 

All of this will require considerable support and technical expertise, and taking a forward view will not be possible for all countries from the start. However, it may still be possible for countries to start planning a roadmap towards developing capacity to do this, including considering options to seek the necessary support. An interesting example of this is where, with funding from the UK Government, we recently supported the Government of Chile to consider options for a NDC tracking system that includes regularly updated GHG projections (to give the forward view), as well as a carbon budget system against which the GHG inventory can be measured (the backward view).

 

We’ll be covering these topics of using the transparency framework for planning purposes towards achieving the NDC and maximising national benefits from NDC implementation in a webinar that we are running on 5th April – see here for more information.

Lorenzo Eguren

Hello all,

I'd like to contribute with some responses to discussion questions from our experience in Colombia:

1)       Measuring progress toward the NDC should not start from scratch, but instead build upon existing national systems and processes for measuring and reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other relevant information.

  • What is already working well in your country in terms of reporting to the UNFCCC?

Colombia presented the BUR in 2015 with international positive feedback.  A good experience and know-how in the construction of BURs is seen in the country.  The BUR was supported by UNDP and GEF by IDEAM. IDEAM will soon publish the Third National Communication, also with UNDP support. 

Do you have clear mandates or legal instruments in place? Do the right institutions have the training and skills for monitoring and reporting?

Yes we have a clear mandate which is the Decree 298 of 2016 that establishes the organization and operation of the National System of Climate Change (SISCLIMA) as the central instance for carrying out the interministerial discussions on climate change. It is coordinated by the Intersectoral Commission on Climate Change (CICC) and the Regional Nodes of Climate Change. The CICC is composed of the ministers of: Environment and Sustainable Development or its delegate; Interior or its delegate; Treasury or its delegate; Agriculture and Rural Development or its delegate; Mines and Energy or its delegate; Transportation or your delegate; Foreign Affairs or its delegate and the Director of the National Planning Department or its delegate.  In the framework of SISCLIMA the Information Committee as well as other national strategies such as the National Adaptation Policy on Climate Change (PNACC), the Colombian Low Carbon Development Strategy (ECDBC) or the REDD+ National Strategy (ENREDD+) are taken as support to achieve the objectives. There is an Information Committee within the SISCLIMA, chaired by IDEAM.

 

Are there any “upgrades” to the system that you are planning?

Yes, the construction of a National and Sub-national MRV guidelines or the creation of a MRV roadmap.  Colombia is also working in the development of a Corporate Voluntary Reporting Platform to include the private sector in mitigation actions.

  • Do you already have a system or process in place for capturing sub-national progress?

Currently, the Ministry of Enviroment in association with external consultants (WRI and CAEM) are developing the Voluntary Corporate Report System to integrate the private sector in the report of carbon emissions and mitigation efforts.  Also the country is developing the National Emissions Reductions Registry (RENARE) based on the National Development Plan.

2)       With respect to mitigation targets, are there any issues on which you would like to have specific guidance on measuring and reporting?

Yes, in Colombia we would like to have guidance in building the National and Sub-national MRV guidelines supported by programs such as: Information Matters, GIZ – Accounting Rules and the US Rali.   Some “upgrades” to the system are planned such as the USAID supported project - in formulation, to create a MRV roadmap.

 

3)       Many countries included adaptation in their NDC. What key information are you planning to collect on adaptation for NDC reporting purposes?

Information in adaptation for NDC reporting has being considered and included and it is being focused in Agriculture and ecosystems (as a component of a vulnerability assessment).  At the moment a total of 36 parameters have being displayed.  

4)       Is any mechanism being considered to streamline and/or align tracking and reporting of data for NDCs and the SDGs? 

Yes, there are some common indicators for NDC and SDG.