21 February 2019: Project implementation partners have launched a climate transparency hub that will help to strengthen measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) of climate action under the Paris Agreement on climate change in the Caribbean region.
The Caribbean Cooperative MRV Hub, which was formally launched during a meeting of English-speaking Caribbean countries at St. George University in Grenada from 5-6 February 2019, will enable countries to cooperate on technical challenges related to climate change mitigation, share expertise to foster regional excellence, and generate stronger policy-relevant carbon accounting.
The MRV Hub, a project of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Management Institute, aims to empower English-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries to efficiently develop GHG inventories and mitigation assessments, and track Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The Hub is geared towards enhanced and sustainable technical GHG capacity for domestic policy making and national reporting to the UNFCCC.
Planned activities of the Hub include:
- operating with digital coordination systems;
- convening a steering committee;
- conducting GHG capacity needs assessments;
- mentoring and training Caribbean experts, including expert mentoring trips for country-specific technical issues;
- multi-country working sessions at the Hub;
- co-developing streamlined MRV and projections tools and guidance;
- co-producing transparent MRV and mitigation projection outputs; and
- developing frameworks for Hub sustainability and improvement to suit countries’ needs.
As a regional cooperative, the Hub will provide expert training, mentoring and institutional support to further enhance the technical work of countries, filling gaps where needed and empowering national experts to expand and improve their MRV outputs.
The Hub is structured for long-term sustainability beyond the duration of the project, which is expected to run through July 2023. The Hub, which represents a cost-effective regional approach to cooperatively preparing data and reporting, will be documented in an MRV Hub Framework so that countries may continue Hub operations.
The Hub is housed at St. George’s University. The 12 participating countries are Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, the Bahamas, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. The Hub is supported by the UNFCCC, the Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), among others. [UNFCCC Press Release] [GHG Management Institute Press Release] [Caribbean Cooperative MRV Hub] [Summary of Hub]