Today, I attended a side event entitled “Paris Agreement Rule-book: Actions, Actors, and Capacity Building for Enhanced Transparency.” The panel discussed the importance of enhanced transparency as part of implementing the Paris Agreement.
Currently, the most significant road block that countries face with an enhanced transparency framework is building capacity. Unfortunately, little progress has been made to establish self sustaining capacities within countries to implement robust transparency mechanisms. While enhanced transparency is a necessary step to better implement and measure the success of the Paris Agreement. Unfortunately, an unintended consequence of an enhanced transparency framework is that it will provide an additional burden for many developing countries. The capacity for enhanced transparency is not present in many developing countries because it is so unfamiliar. They do not currently have a strong measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) mechanism, making transparency a challenge.
Some of the elements of enhanced transparency may include building information systems based on international regimes, disseminating policies and actions, using independent verification to promote compliance, evaluating countries to ensure that collective targets are met and building institutional mechanisms to retain capacity. Additionally, the development of modalities, procedures and guidelines around transparency must be country specific, taking into account the unique situation of each country individually. Information that will be needed to track the progress of nationally determined contributions (NDCs) includes a description of the NDC, a summary of greenhouse gas emissions and removals, accounting information, green house gas projections based on the implemented policies.
As one of the panelists discussed, despite the apparent challenges for enhanced transparency, it is part of building the arc of ambition. In the same way that the Paris Agreement is an ambitious and idealistic goal, enhanced transparency is part of that same ambitious vision. Achieving the goals set out by the Paris Agreement will require strong implementing guidelines and transparency is a crucial player. Next steps include figuring out ways to build the capacities of countries to be able to implement an enhanced transparency framework that can adequately measure how countries are doing individually and collectively.