Questioning the Status Quo: What does Ethiopia’s engagement in UNFCCC transparency arrangements deliver?
National stakeholder dialogue with climate transparency researchers
Thursday 24 October 2024, 09:30 – 16:00 hours (EAT)
Location: Kuriftu Resort & Spa Bishoftu, kebeke 15, Bishoftu, Ethiopia
Objective
This dialogue aims to bring together academics and diverse stakeholders in Ethiopia, with the core objective being to reflect on whether and how Ethiopia’s engagement with UNFCCC transparency arrangements could help advance its priorities to bring about domestic benefits.
Background and Context
Ethiopia has been actively involved in international climate change efforts since the 1990s, ratifying the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1994 and the Paris Agreement in 2017. The primary goal of this international agreement is to limit the rise of human-caused global temperature while requiring signatories to be transparent about their climate actions, especially those related to climate mitigation. Although not mandatory for Least Developed Countries (LDCs), Ethiopia has engaged in the UNFCCC transparency requirements by submitting three National Communications (NCs) and one Biennial Update Report (BUR). With technical support from international capacity-building providers, these reports mainly focus on a detailed assessment of national greenhouse gas inventories and the country’s commitments to mitigation actions. But with less focus on adaptation, loss and damage assessments, and climate finance tracking.
Both internationally and nationally, engaging with the UNFCCC through transparency reporting is assumed to provide domestic benefits, such as utilizing these reports in policy formulation, attracting international climate finance, and participating in future carbon markets. In practice, however, it is unclear whether this engagement is delivering those domestic benefits for Ethiopia. Another unexplored yet highly contested topic is whether LDCs such as Ethiopia, which have an insignificant contribution to global greenhouse emissions, should prioritize mitigation actions (as required by the UNFCCC) over their other urgent development challenges.
The international research project ‘Assessing the Transformative Potential of Climate Transparency’ (TRANSGOV), based at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, addresses these knowledge gaps. TRANSGOV’s research has produced several key insights that challenge the status quo of what is often believed to be the enabling role of ever-greater levels of transparency in climate governance. These findings suggest that the current status quo of (largely mitigation-focused) climate reporting may not be conducive (and potentially even be a hurdle) to realizing specific domestic climate action priorities in LDCs.
In 2024, a new Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) under the Paris Agreement has become operational, under which even more stringent mitigation-related transparency is now required from countries. Adherence to this new framework through submitting Biennial Transparency Reports (BTR) is mandatory for most countries but still voluntary for LDCs. Ethiopia has already expressed interest in submitting a BTR to the UNFCCC. Consecutively, international capacity-building support initiatives are underway to help the country comply with this specific transparency requirement. This is a thus crucial moment to assess whether and how the country’s previous engagement with the UNFCCC has yielded domestic benefits. It is timely to ask: What does Ethiopia’s engagement in UNFCCC transparency arrangements deliver? Where should Ethiopia’s reporting priorities focus, and what technical capacity-building support is needed to realize such priorities? TRANSGOV facilitates these questions during this national stakeholder dialogue.
Speakers
Prof. Aarti Gupta
Wageningen University & Research
Aarti Gupta is Principal Investigator of the TRANSGOV project. She is a Professor of Global Environmental Governance with the Environmental Policy Group, Department of Social Sciences, Wageningen University. Her research is in the field of global environmental and climate governance, with a focus on transparency and accountability and the challenges of anticipatory governance of novel technologies, including climate engineering. She has published extensively in these fields, including the edited volume, Transparency in Global Environmental Governance: Critical Perspectives (2014, MIT Press). She holds a PhD from Yale University and is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the International Earth System Governance Research Alliance.
Mr. Benti Firdissa
Rahwa Kidane
Wageningen University & Research
Rahwa Kidane is a postdoctoral researcher in the Environmental Policy Group at Wageningen University and Research. She holds a PhD in Environmental Studies from the University of Adelaide, with a focus on climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation in developing countries. Within TRANSGOV projects, she will facilitate analysis of Ethiopia’s participation in UNFCCC climate transparency arrangements and its implications for national adaptation actions. Her work will also investigate whether radical transparency – or the generation of ever more climate-related information enabled through satellite and other remote sensing technologies – hold responsible actors accountable, enhances trust and consecutively accelerates climate action in India and Ethiopia.
Max van Deursen
Wageningen University & Research
Max van Deursen has a background in environmental science and global governance. He has a master’s degree in Climate Studies from Wageningen University with a specialization in climate policy and sustainable development diplomacy. Through engagement in several UN conferences as the Dutch youth representative to the UN and as an intern at the UNFCCC secretariat Max has first-hand experience with climate negotiations. He is one of two TRANSGOV PhDs, with a focus on assessing how participation in climate transparency arrangements relates to domestic climate action. He will also critically examine the workings of transparency mechanisms under the UNFCCC, including the Enhanced Transparency Framework.
Programme
| 9:30 | Registration |
| 10:00 | Welcome and opening Prof. Aarti Gupta, Wageningen University & Research Mr. Benti Firdissa |
| 10:30 | Presentations 1. What are the UNFCCC transparency arrangements? Mr. Max van Deursen, Wageningen University & Research 2. Ethiopia’s engagement in UNFCCC transparency arrangements Dr. Rahwa Kidane, Wageningen University & Research |
| 11:00 | Interactive session 1: What has engagement in transparency arrangements delivered? In this interactive session, we will discuss Ethiopia’s past engagement with UNFCCC transparency arrangements. Ethiopia has submitted three National Communications (NCs) and one Biennial Update Report (BUR). We will discuss what the utility and impact of generating such reports has been for Ethiopia. |
| 12:30 | Lunch break |
| 14:00 | Interactive session 2: How to shape future engagement in transparency arrangements? In this interactive session, we will look ahead to Ethiopia’s future engagement with UNFCCC transparency arrangements. We will explore the question: where should Ethiopia’s future reporting priorities to the UNFCCC focus on, and how can international capacity-building efforts support these priorities? |
| 15:30 | Closing and reflection |
| 16:00 | Drinks, snacks and networking |
Contact
Rahwa Kidane (rahwa.kidane@wur.nl)
Max van Deursen (max.vandeursen@wur.nl)
This TRANSGOV event is financed by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) Impact Explorer.
TRANSGOV 