COP28 Side-event

Benefits and burdens: Developing country experiences with participation in UNFCCC transparency arrangements

Friday, 08 December 2023
11:30—13:00 (Gulf Standard Time, GMT+4)
COP28 venue, side-event room 5

Recording

Summary

This side-event aims to bring together academic researchers and practitioners to discuss the benefits and burdens of developing country participation in UNFCCC transparency arrangements. In the past decade, developing countries have submitted over 400 reports to the UNFCCC. Has this provided meaningful information to further climate action? Or, is it a complex tick-box exercise? The side-event features the Principal Investigators of two  internationally leading research projects on transparency in global climate governance, TRANSGOV and TRANSCLIM, as well as experts and practitioners who are closely involved in domestic efforts to interpret and implement UNFCCC transparency arrangements, from in South Africa and India.

Background

The Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) of the Paris Agreement contains a detailed set of reporting and review provisions that aim to make visible how countries perform vis-à-vis their climate targets. As of 2024, the enhanced transparency framework requires all countries, except SIDS and LDCs, to submit Biennial Transparency Reports. This represents a substantial increase in stringency of reporting rules for developing countries.

Academic literature and practitioner experiences suggest that adhering to the transparency arrangements is no easy task. Collecting the necessary data and reporting on a biennial basis requires the establishment of domestic systems. Only 12 developing countries managed to submit four Biennial Update Reports, showing that many developing countries experience challenges in generating these reports.

Given the extensive time and resources required to set up domestic systems for reporting, it is a pertinent question to explore how, in addition to adhering to international reporting obligations, participation in transparency arrangements can provide meaningful information to further domestic climate action priorities.

Key climate action priorities of developing countries include adaptation, loss and damage and climate finance and the enhanced transparency framework includes these in its reporting provisions. While the focus of reporting has traditionally centered on greenhouse gas inventories and mitigation actions, the enhanced transparency framework might introduce opportunities to report on issues of particular relevance to furthering domestic climate action priorities in developing countries.

Civil society and think thanks can further play a role in translating information in the transparency reports into policy-relevant insights. Such insights may be of relevance domestically or shine a light on the performance of other countries in relation to their pledges. However, to date there are few examples of civil society organizations in the Global South that engage with UNFCCC transparency arrangements.

This side-event aims to bring together academic research and practitioner experiences to explore the benefits and burdens of developing country participation in UNFCCC transparency arrangements. The side-event features the Principal Investigators of two internationally leading research projects on transparency in global climate governance, TRANSGOV and TRANSCLIM, as well as experts who are closely involved in domestic efforts to implement UNFCCC transparency arrangements.

Objective

This side-event provides a unique forum for a discussion about the UNFCCC transparency arrangements that does not take the transparency rules for granted but critically engages with the question of what transparency might deliver, in practice, for developing countries.

  1. Bring together academic research and practitioner experiences on the role of transparency in climate governance.
  2. Critically interrogate the benefits and burdens of participation in UNFCCC transparency arrangements for developing countries.
  3. Explore examples to leverage UNFCCC transparency arrangements to further domestic climate action priorities.

Speakers

Prof. Aarti Gupta

Wageningen University & Research @AartiGupta17 @Transgov_wur

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.

Prof. Harro van Asselt

University of Eastern Finland @harrovanasselt

Harro van Asselt is the Principal Investigator of the TRANSCLIM project. He holds the Hatton Professorship in Climate Law at the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge he is also a Law Fellow at Hughes Hall. He is also a Professor of Climate Law and Policy at the University of Eastern Finland Law School, and an Affiliated Researcher with the Stockholm Environment Institute. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law (RECIEL), one of the top peer-reviewed environmental law journals. He has held visiting research and/or teaching positions at a number of leading international institutions, including Utrecht University, the University of Georgia, the University of Strathclyde, Bar-Ilan University, the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the Finnish Institute for International Affairs.

Jigme

Manager of the Transparency Division at the UNFCCC Secretariat.

Sumit Prasad

Council on Energy, Environment and Water @CEEWIndia

Sumit is a Programme Lead in the International Cooperation team at CEEW. He has led evidence-based research and shed light on pre-2020 climate actions and the implications of transparency arrangement as well as examined other topical issues of international climate governance. He has also authored the MRV chapter in India’s Biennial Update Reports and was nominated by the Government of India to the UNFCCC roaster group of experts.

Dr. Himangana Gupta

UNU-IAS

Dr. Himangana Gupta is Research Fellow and Academic Associate at United Nations University – Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS). She is an expert in climate change and biodiversity policy and has worked on climate adaptation, forestry, women and climate change, energy efficiency, and national GHG inventories. She was also a part of the National Communication Cell of the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change from 2016-2019, and contributed to India’s Second and Third Biennial Update Reports to the UNFCCC. She is a certified expert in climate adaptation finance. She has seven edited books to her credit and more than 40 research publications, including book chapters. Currently, she is also serving as Lead Author for the Nexus Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. 

Sandra Motshwanedi

Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (South Africa)

Deputy Director of International Reporting on Climate Change, Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, National Government of South Africa.

Reitumetse Molotsoane

NBI

Reitumetse Molotsoane is the Head: Environment at the National Business Initiative (NBI). Reitumetse was previously Programme Manager: Climate and Energy at the NBI.  Reitumetse was formerly Director: Mitigation Response Analysis and Director: Climate Change Priority Programmes at the South African National Department Forestry, Fisheries and Environment.  She led the analysis and reporting of national mitigation actions to various audiences, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.  She provided strategic and advisory services in the development and implementation of South Africa’s Climate Change Flagship Programmes, attracting investment, and enhancing implementing capacity. Reitumetse is nominated to the UNFCCC Roster of Experts for South Africa since 2015.  She was previously the Senior Manager: Climate Change at EY and Senior Consultant at Camco Clean Energy. Reitumetse holds an MSc from Imperial College, London and undergraduate degree from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

Programme

11:30 – 11:35Welcome and Introduction
Max van Deursen
11:35 – 11:45 Opening remarks 
Jigme, UNFCCC Transparency Division 
11:45 – 12:00Presentations (7 min each)
1. Prof. Aarti Gupta: Assessing the Transformative Potential of Transparency in Climate Governance
2. Prof. Harro van Asselt: Pathways from Transparency to Climate Action
12:00 – 12:50Panel discussion
Moderator: Max van Deursen 

▪ Sumit Prasad, CEEW
▪ Dr. Himangana Gupta, UNU-IAS
▪ Sandra Motshwanedi, DFFE, South Africa
▪ Reitumetse Molotsoane, NBI

Discussion questions:

1. What incentives drive participation in UNFCCC transparency arrangements, particularly for developing countries? Moreover, have these anticipated benefits materialized in practice during past engagements with UNFCCC transparency arrangements? 
 
2. What lessons can be drawn from existing experiences for the transition to the enhanced transparency framework?  
 
Each panelist will have 3 minutes to provide comments on the discussion question. Following that, the audience will be encouraged to pose follow-up questions or share comments. This process will be repeated for the second discussion question. 
12:50 – 13:00Closing and what is next?
Prof. Aarti Gupta & Prof. Harro van Asselt 
13:00 – 13:30Brown bag lunch

Contact

Max van Deursen (Max.vandeursen@wur.nl)