20 November 2014: The UNFCCC Secretariat has produced a technical paper synthesizing the views of parties on updating the guidelines for the national communications (NCs) of Annex I parties (FCCC/TP/2014/5). The paper also analyzes the current reporting guidelines to determine areas that may need revision to provide coherence, consistency and alignment with the most recent decisions of the Conference of the Parties (COP).

At the request of the COP, the Subsidiary Body on Implementation (SBI) began reviewing the ‘Guidelines for the Preparation of National Communications by Parties Included in Annex I to the Convention, Part II: UNFCCC Reporting Guidelines on National Communications’ at its 40th session, and requested parties to submit their views on the issue. The technical paper prepared by the Secretariat will inform the work of SBI 41, which may present the revised guidelines for adoption at the 20th session of the COP, which will take place in December 2014, in Lima, Peru.

The paper reviews both the views expressed by parties and the proposed changes based on the Secretariat’s analysis of the following sections of the guidelines for NCs: introduction; national circumstances relevant to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals; GHG inventory information; policies and measures (PAMs); projections and the total effect of PAMs; vulnerability assessment, climate change impacts and adaptation measures; financial resources and transfer of technology; research and systematic observation; and education, training and public awareness. [Technical Paper on the Revision of the NC Guidelines]