10 September 2014: The third Summer School of the International Partnership on Mitigation and MRV, focusing on the preparation and implementation of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), attracted 28 policymakers and negotiators from 20 developed and developing countries and the EU.
Organized from 3-10 September 2014, in Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic, the Summer School linked domestic work by practitioners with the UNFCCC negotiations, and allowed for an exchange of experiences and lessons learned among participants outside a negotiating setting.
Over seven days, Summer School participants: explored the INDC instrument in depth; discussed possible domestic processes for its preparation; and determined the kind of up-front information that would be needed for both transparency among countries and assessing the sufficiency of the cumulative contribution for meeting the 2°C long term global goal. In addition to an ample peer-to-peer exchange, participants also benefited from presentations by international experts from the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the World Resources Institute (WRI), Ecofys and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), among others.
Themes covered during the workshop include: elements of the 2015 climate agreement, including the content of INDCs; ambition and preparation of INDCs; up-front information and assessment of INDCs; domestic implementation of commitments; and measurement, reporting and verification (MRV).
On the structure of the 2015 agreement, participants of the Summer School mentioned the possibility for having both fixed and flexible elements, or “bones and meat.” On information to be included in INDCs, it was suggested that up-front information only include adaptation measures if mitigation policies and actions depend on them. On measuring ambition in relation to equity, it was noted that a straight-forward formula for assessing a country’s equitable share in the global mitigation effort is likely not to be found in the short term.
Participants also stressed up-front information as crucial for understanding countries’ contributions, building trust, tracking global and domestic progress, and comparing ambition levels, and emphasized the importance of an assessment in light of the 2°C objective and raising ambition of individual contributions. On MRV requirements for the new agreement, participants highlighted the importance of building on lessons from current MRV requirements.
The International Partnership on Mitigation and MRV, launched in 2010 by South Africa, the Republic of Korea and Germany, aims to support a practical exchange on mitigation-related activities and MRV between developing and developed countries, with the ultimate aim of closing the ambition gap. The Partnership has over 60 members and organizes meetings back-to-back with UN negotiations on climate change. [International Partnership on Mitigation and MRV Summer School Summary] [International Partnership on Mitigation and MRV Website]