Paris agreement is good news for development consulting and its beneficiaries

Paris agreement is good news for development consulting and its beneficiaries

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The Paris Agreement confirms that international efforts for tackling climate change will be driven at a national level. Developing countries will receive assistance through capacity building actions supported by financial institutions, international and regional bodies and developed countries, opening new, impactful project opportunities.

The agreement cemented the importance of national contributions. The objective is to design national strategies capable of limiting the increase in the global average temperature to below 2°C above pre-industrialized level and going further, aspire for the new target of 1.5°C.  Responsibility for developing policies and regulations is assigned to national governments. Countries are required to submit intended nationally determined contributions every five years. Common methodologies for accounting of emissions and consistency across national contributions are encouraged. The Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement was tasked to develop modalities and guidelines for the implementation. The judgement on how effective this approach will be in achieving effective greenhouse gas emissions will come from practical implementation. At this early stage, the agreement gives hints of interesting opportunities for those engaging in policy and regulatory work with developing countries.

Administrations of developed countries are generally well equipped to design, monitor and report on policies and measures addressing GHG emissions reductions. Developing countries on the other hand often lack the capabilities to design and implement rigorous tracking of emissions. The task is even more challenging if consistent, internationally agreed methodologies are to be followed. The Paris Agreement suggests that we will see more harmonization in methodologies and tools used to account for emissions at national level. Most importantly, the Agreement sets out several commitments with the purpose to encourage capacity building in developing countries to encourage their enhanced pre-2020 action.

1. The Paris Committee on capacity-building will be created to prepare a work plan for 2016-2020. Its purpose will be to improve how technical assistance is distributed to developing countries and avoid overlaps between donor entities. Creation of a web-based capacity building portal is planned (and needed).

2. The Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice is tasked with enhancing linkages and creating synergies between capacity building, technology and finance track of the Paris Agreement implementation.

3.  Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency will be established and specifically dedicated to provide more clarity on support provided to and received by developing countries.

4. A variety of actors involved in development assistance are invited to report on how they incorporate climate-proofing and climate resilience measures in their activities in developing countries.

The above provisions provide an interesting ground for development consulting work focused on capacity building in the area of climate change. Of course, provided they are implemented by the development aid actors, but that's a topic for another article several months down the road.

Katarina Uherova Hasbani, Business Development Asia @ Revelle Group

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