In late September this year, SPREP with support from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Australia organised a workshop on Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). INDCs are climate change jargon for the types of emission reductions each country is willing to pledge for the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris this year also known as COP21. Although convened a bit late in the process, as a deadline had been set for 1 October for INDCs to be considered in a FCCC synthesis report, INDCs can still be submitted until the last day of the COP. INDCs can play an important role in many respects.
Firstly, INDCs for Pacific Islands are a political document for a political process – the UNFCCC negotiations on the next global treaty that will be negotiated at COP21. In reality, mitigation by almost all PICs is of no meaningful significance to the atmosphere; emissions from the region are around 0.03% of the global total. What is important for the Pacific is to be able to take a moral stance as they challenge the world’s larger emitters to be more ambitious. Being able to show that the region is taking meaningful mitigation action in the face of all other challenges related to climate change and the requirements for adaptation provides such an entry point.
Secondly, at a more practical level, and still connected to the international UNFCCC process, INDCs provide an opportunity for Pacific Island Countries that wish to undertake these voluntary mitigation actions to get recognition for their actions, and thus seek financial support to ensure implementation.
There are also domestic reasons and benefits for Pacific island countries to prepare INDCs. Preparing a sound and achievable INDC can help climate change officials get a mandate from the highest political levels in their governments to set a national GHG emissions related goal and pathway. With that in place hopefully there will flow the subsequent mitigation projects and necessary domestic policy enhancements to deliver this pathway. This will typically involve pulling together a number of strands of existing goals, strategies, plans and policies.
The process of completing an INDC was a unique opportunity for the participants in the workshop to begin the process to review and improve internal systems for gathering and sharing the necessary data by which GHG emissions and current trends in, and projections for, Greenhouse gas emissions can be estimated.
There are currently (as of 22nd of October) six Pacific Island countries who have submitted INDC’s, and these are Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, RMI, Kiribati, Samoa and Solomon Islands. For more information on Pacific INDC’s please see the following website: http://www4.unfccc.int/submissions/indc/Submission%20Pages/submissions.aspx