November 2015: The Secretariats of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Energy Agency (IEA) have published two reports on climate change mitigation and on reporting.

The reports, titled ‘Establishing Cycles for Nationally Determined Mitigation Contributions or Commitments’ and ‘Identifying and Addressing Gaps in the UNFCCC Reporting Framework,’ were published in response to requests by the Climate Change Expert Group (CCXG), which oversees development of analytical papers in order to provide input to negotiations under the UNFCCC.

The report on mitigation focuses on nationally determined mitigation contributions or commitments (NDMCs) contained in the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted by countries. It explains that within the climate negotiations, countries are discussing mechanisms that can be used to regularly update and communicate NDMCs, and such mechanisms could include utilizing one or more multilateral processes to support the process of updating and communicating the NDMCs.

This paper addresses ideas being discussed by countries within the climate negotiations and contained in the draft 2015 agreement being considered by countries. It explains the concept of a “cycle,” referring to the process of communicating NDMCs and their possible passage through the multilateral processes (for instance, for updating the commitments). It also highlights that a key purpose of these ideas in relation to NDMCs is to ensure “dynamism” and provide a way for countries to increase their mitigation ambition over time.

The paper concludes by highlighting some areas that will require decisions from Parties at the Paris Climate Change Conference and shortly thereafter. It outlines in particular that Parties will need to set the framework for the procedures and processes, including the multilateral processes, to be applied to NDMCs, in order to measure their progress and ensure that they are achieved.

The other publication highlights that the current UNFCCC reporting framework contains gaps, inconsistencies and uncertainties in relation to the reporting of countries’ pre-2020 commitments and pledges. It notes that reporting under the current framework has been the most transparent and complete where: guidelines are clear on what to measure and report; methods are available for how to do this; and there are explicit consequences for non-reporting as part of review processes.

The report also points out the voluntary nature of the reporting of information required to understand countries’ commitments and pledges to 2020. It highlights that because the current framework was designed for pre-2020 commitments, some of the post-2020 commitments being made by countries cannot easily be brought within the framework, for example, because some of them have a difference scope to that for which the framework was designed.

The paper identifies possible changes to the UNFCCC reporting framework in the post-2020 period, for instance, to ensure the provision of information to be able to understand and track progress on both individual contributions of countries, as well as collective goals or efforts, such as in relation to the provision of climate finance by developed countries. [Publication: Establishing Cycles for Nationally Determined Mitigation Contributions or Commitments] [Publication: Identifying and Addressing Gaps in the UNFCCC Reporting Framework]