Communicating progress in national and global adaptation to climate change

Abstract

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected papers on climate change issues that have been prepared for the OECD/IEA Climate Change Expert Group (CCXG). The CCXG (formerly called the Annex I Expert Group) is a group of government delegates from OECD and other industrialised countries. The aim of the group is to promote dialogue and enhance understanding on technical issues in the international climate change negotiations. CCXG papers are developed in consultation with experts from a wide range of developed and developing countries, including those participating in the regular Global Forum on the Environment organised by the CCXG. The full papers are generally available only in English. The opinions expressed in these papers are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the OECD, the IEA or their member countries, or the endorsement of any approach described herein.

Information needed to facilitate the clarity, transparency and understanding of mitigation contributions

“…Development of the guidance falls under an agenda item dealing with mitigation; if Parties feel other areas currently communicated in NDCs, such as adaptation actions and support needs, require greater clarity, transparency and understanding at the time of the NDC communication, this issue of scope might need to be addressed separately. 26 Currently, "further guidance on adaptation communications, including, inter alia, as a component of NDCs" is being discussed under item 4 of the APA agenda; CTU issues could be discussed here, as previous analysis has shown the adaptation components of NDCs do indeed lack clarity (Kato and Ellis, 2016). Bearing in mind the need to avoid providing information in a burdensome way, Parties may also consider what elements or constituents of a Party's NDC would most benefit from guidance to facilitate their clarity, transparency and understanding.…”

Operationalising selected reporting and flexibility provisions in the Paris Agreement

“…However, the lack of structured guidance on what to report on adaptation, and how it could be reported has led to significant variation between countries relating to the coverage, level of detail, and level of measurability of adaptation-related responses reported. This holds true both for countries' NCs as well as any adaptation component of NDCs, where previous CCXG analysis (Kato and Ellis, 2016 [25]) has highlighted the variation in clarity, specificity and transparency of adaptation responses communicated. Further analysis for the CCXG (Vallejo, Moarif and Halimanjaya, 2017[6]) has highlighted that more detailed reporting guidance could help countries better focus their reporting efforts, and can also help to improve the consistency and comparability of data and information presented.…”

“…Reporting an improvement plan (as part of a national transparency report, or separately), setting out the relevant planned improvements, including from the recommendations of the technical expert review to the extent feasible. 16 This is based on the assumption that target setting has considered, among others, the institutional, data and methodological capacity to monitor and report on the actions necessary to achieve the target. If this assumption is correct, then international reporting could be carried out on the basis of the Party's existing capacities.…”

“…For many countries, this may be because NDCs are the first time that Parties have established mitigation or adaptation targets. 21 Indeed, as (Herold, Siemons and Herrmann, 2018 [16]) shows, 33% of Parties who have submitted a business-as-usual (BAU)related target do not provide any BAU values or provide only a graph with no values for the target period or other years. 50% of Parties who have submitted a BAU-related target do not provide a description of methodologies and assumptions for the BAU.…”

“…Relatively recent information on adaptation is available for 73 developing countries, via the 71 NCs and 10 National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) submitted to the UNFCCC since 2015. 25 The majority of these NCs contain at least some information on climate impacts and vulnerability, adaptation priorities and planned adaptation actions. Information on technologies relevant to adaptation can also be found in countries' Technology Needs Assessments (TNAs).…”