9 December 2014: On the sidelines of the Lima Climate Change Conference, the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the Government of Switzerland organized an event on the experiences of the four Latin American countries participating in the Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios (MAPS) South-South collaboration. ‘Innovation in the Development of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs): The MAPS Experience,’ highlighted the experiences of Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru and emphasized the role of research in guiding decision making.

Hernán Blanco, Chile, explained how teams tackle data gaps and human capacity constraints in the MAPS Programme, which was developed based on South Africa’s experience in conducting structured research-processes to develop long-term scenarios, and provide input to their INDCs. Blanco highlighted the role of a multisectoral coordinating committee in mobilizing information from seven participating ministries.

Maria-Elena Gutiérrez, Peru, noted that the MAPS team brought together 400 experts in 46 meetings. Speaking on how the project teams evolved during the project, Barbara Oliveira, Brazil, described how, with Brazil’s existing capacity in environmental and scientific policymaking, the MAPS team had to tackle the question “why is change not happening?” and kept challenging themselves to ensure their work would have an impact.

Additional speakers highlighted how the MAPS Programme uses political facilitation to fulfill the needs of policy makers, who want to know the socio-economic impacts of mitigation measures. They explained participatory research processes involving sectoral experts and described how teams are considering differentiated discount rates and impact on local communities.

On links between the MAPS process and the INDCs, panelists explained the challenges, as INDCs need to be developed at the whole economy level, while MAPS is based on scenario building at the sector level. Panelists noted, however, that the scientific basis of the MAPS output can help steer evidence-based discussion.

The ensuing discussion considered: ensuring that the research process contributes to structured capacity building; scaling up mitigation ambition by elaborating on the additional commitments needed if MAPS scenarios are adopted; and decentralizing the planning process to the sub-national level.

Concluding the session, Stefan Raubenheimer, UCT and MAPS International, outlined work toward developing an international academy network, noting many African countries, as well as a second group of Latin American countries, have shown interest in the process. [IISD RS ENBOTS Coverage] [IISD RS ENBOTS Video Coverage of Side Event] [IISD RS Coverage of Lima Climate Change Conference] [MAPS Programme Event Announcement] [Government of Switzerland Event Announcement] [UCT Website]