GuidingVision:“ArobustandsustainableeconomyforPNGthroughalowcarbonpathwayandgreeneconomicgrowth”

APA/UNFCCCSUBMISSION

PNG’s FOCUSED SUBMISSION ON MPGs FOR THE TRANSPARENCY FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION AND SUPPORT REFFERRED TO IN ARTICLE 13 OF THE PARIS AGREEMENT

1. The Government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) welcomes the opportunity to submit it’s views, inter alia, the possible “headings and subheadings” including those raised by Parties as referred to in document FCCC/SBSTA/2017/L.2 para. 13(a)

Main Principles

2. Flexibility- One of the main features of this Framework will be built-in

flexibility. This flexibility will take into account different parties capacities and

will be built upon collective experience. Flexibility and collective experience

are key to the future of this Transparency Framework, which should not be

rigid in it’s considerations and requirements, and should not be built using a

top-down approach, rather utelize the key experiences of parties to influence

it’s structure moving forward

3. Experience-Building on collective experience, according to PNG’s view may

also mean that Parties should be able to use their collective experience from the

implementation of the Transparency Framework under the Convention, to

influence what should be captured in the framework for action and support. In

addition, should the current transparency arrangements under the Convention,

provides no space or room for such experience to be reflected in a non-

punitive, and non-intrusive manner, it should be as broad and transparent as

possible

3. PNG is also of the view that the Transparency Framework for Action

and Support must have two main components; the Reporting

component and the Review component. The reporting component, fully

lies within the domestic mandate of parties when it comes to

implementation and does not include international interference in it’s

judgement on how it reflects a party’s progress on its domestic actions

to address climate change;

4. Further, we decided to separate our views on what we believe could be

some future considerations on how to build the Transparency

Framework under Article 13 by separating the Reporting and Review

components into two parts in this submission and discussing them

separately, meanwhile reflecting on PNG’s experiences with it’s

National Communication and BUR processes, in country, and how we

envisage the transition into either a new or a modified transparency

framework that is relevant to the Paris Agreement.

4. The reporting component of the Transparency Framework must always

include; reporting on Action and Support Figure One : Reporting Component for Action and Support (Domestic Process)

Source: CCDA , Papua New Guinea, 2017

TransparencyFramework(ReportingComponent)

Action

NationalGHGInventory

(Mayincludeallrelevantgasesand

sourcesaccordingtoaParty'sNDCsandMitigationPriorities

REPORTSRequiredunderArticle13

1.NationalCommunications2.BiennialUpdateReports3.NewReportingTool(Anhybridofalloftheabove)andhasstronglinkagetocountrydrivenNDCs

Support-CapacityBuilding

-TechnologyTransfer-Finance

InformationonSupportProvided&SupportRecieved

5. PNG decided to use the example of what would have transpired in how we

transit into this new Transparency Framework in the way we report our

information. Under the report requirements, there are two areas which PNG

believes the reporting could cover, and these are Actions and Support. Under

Actions, the report should be able to demonstrate or progressively tell how

much a country party like PNG has done in terms of implementing it’s sectoral

mitigation commitments under it’s NDC and also link up to the GHG Inventory

to capture the information it has on sectoral emissions. In terms of reporting on

Support, the information should capture the type of support received so far by

country parties for this case, PNG on what type of support it has received for

it’s NDC implementation. For developed country parties, it may contain

information on the type of support they have provided to developing country

parties for NDC implementation

Direct link to NDC Implementation : Mitigation Commitments

6. The reporting component of the Transparency Framework for Action and Support

must be directly linked to the NDC reports which contains actions to be

implemented by parties; in mitigation, and support; and should link the

information in the following manner;

a) National GHG Inventories – For the National GHG Inventories, it must

embrace the diversity of mitigation actions reflected by parties in their NDCs,

so that the sectors, gases, and sources must be a reflection of that broad

diversity; including the baseline that will be used

b) National GHG Inventory for REDD+ - Methodological work on REDD+, that

also combines with Landsat and Remote Sensing is being comprehensively

built in many countries, as such the calculations, will need their own national

inventory, and this could be linked under this reporting requirements as well

c) A new or modified Reporting tool that will serve both the Convention and Paris

Agreement - Adopt some best practices in the guidelines used by National

Communications, Biennial Reports (BRs), and Biennial Update Reports

(BURs) to inform this new reporting tool, should parties agree to it

3.1 : Reporting on Support (Tabular Format) – The information reported on

support should be reflected in this new or modified reporting tool, and it should

be consistent with the type of information reported in NDCs as well on support,

so there is consistency and coherence in the information reported

7. PNG is of the view that for all National GHG Inventories, parties must have the

inbuilt flexibilities to report on all sources, gases and pools and those from

mitigation co-benefit actions as well. For parties, who have been implementing

REDD+, due to the complexities of the technology required for REDD+ and

it’s inventory issues; a party depending on it’s capacity can choose to build a

separate national GHG inventory for REDD+ alone

9. For those wishing to undertake mitigation in the other specific LULUCF

sectors, other than REDD+, may choose to include that in the GHG inventory.

10. The National GHG Inventory/ies must be as broad as possible so it fully

reflects the principles of Article 13.1 in providing flexibility for all parties to

report on their relevant and appropriate mitigation actions prescribed in their

NDCs.

Reporting on Support prescribed in NDCs (Tabular Format)

11. In this component, PNG is of the view that this should take into consideration a

progressive report of how much parties have received in terms of technology

transfer, finance and capacity building support, in quantified value. For

example if Party X has reported an amount of USD 100 million allocated by

it’s government to support climate change; in it’s NDCs under Article 4, it may

not be necessary to prescribe where this USD 100 million has gone to. Under

reporting on support, under Article 13; Party X can make reference to it’s

report on finance in it’s NDC, and further elaborate where the USD 100 million

has gone to, or has been disbursed to, example; USD 50 million to GCF, USD

20 million to AF, USD 30 million to others?

12. Party Y on the receiving end, in quantified information can report by

referencing similar content to it’s NDC, and outline how much it has been

receiving in quantified support for technology transfer, capacity building and

finance for climate change. Party Y must be specific on where it’s climate

financial flows are coming from; again whether they are from GCF, AF or

other sources

13. Again, going back to PNG’s Mitigation submission; we did outline the need to

quantify information on support needed for technology transfer, capacity

building, and general climate change finance; but we were not at the liberty to

prescribe what was required of those from developed country parties

New Reporting Tool : “NDC Implementation Stock-Take Reports”

14. PNG is of the view that the new reporting tool to be developed under the

Transparency Framework, could branch out into two new reporting tools and

should have strong complementary links to the NDC reports. This is to

maintain transparency and clarity of information provided, which can be easily

comparable to the NDC submissions, and or updated submissions

15. The second aspect of this supposed to be new reporting tool is it’s relationship

with the global stock take process under Article 14 of the Paris Agreement. In

order to maintain consistency with Article 13.4 whereby National

Communications, BRs and BURs experiences will assist inform the

development of a Transparency Framework starting with the reports, PNG

believes that it would be valuable to consider a short term and a long-term

reporting tool; and the naming of the report should have relevance to the NDC

and the Global Stocktake

Figure 2 : Illustration of the two complementary Reports

Source: CCDA, 2017, Papua New Guinea

NDC Implementation Stock-Take Reports (Long Term) : Every Five Years

16. PNG is of the view that this Reporting tool, should complement Article 4.9 on

the communication of updated NDCs. In addition, this long-term report is the

one at least for PNG’s case may includes the following non-exhaustive list;1 so

it could be consistent with our NDC aspirations should it sets itself to replace

the National Communications, communicated every four years; and below we

include an example of how PNG may wish to report in consistent with our

NDCs

a) Mitigation Section2

§ All sectors, Gases (up to parties)

§ Unaccounted Sectors and Gases

§ Sectors used in ITMOs

b) Support Received / Support Provided (Tabular Format)3

c) Annex One of the Report : Summary of Adaptation Implementation Progress

1 PNG wishes to be consistently aligned with our Mitigation submission under the agenda Item 3 2 This section should emulate the type of information provided in BRs and BURs with the flexibility allowed to parties to report according to the information provided in their NDCs on mitigation, and also the information they have in their National GHG Inventories/Inventories but could be packaged in the above manner 3 And this we expect it would be of this nature, given in our Mitigation submission, we stressed the need to quantify the information provided in NDCs

REPORT1:NDCs(APA3)ReportOne:NationallyDeterminedContributions

REPORT2:TransparencyFramework(APA5)

ReportTwo:NDCStockTakeReports

a)LongTermReports(ReplaceNCs)

b)ShortTermReports(ReplaceBURs-midterm)

NDCImplementationatthedomesticfront

(Replacing V&A of National Communications)

d) Annex Two of the Report : Voluntary Quantified Information on domestic

mitigation measures to address emissions from international bunker-fuels

NDC Implementation Stock-Take Reports (Mid-Term Reports): Same reporting

period as BRs and BURs

17. For the short mid-term reports, PNG is of the view that we use the same guidance

currently being adopted for the BRs and BURs, but the information provided

should consistently reflect a party’s capacity to flexibility report on what they have

committed under their NDCs and may replace the BURs we currently are required

to use. The information contained should also reflect the information they have

gathered within the National GHG Inventories, against their priority mitigation

actions scribed in their NDCs

18. Furthermore, PNG is of the view that it would be useful if this short-term reports

be restricted to reporting only on mitigation actions, and should adopt the same

report on aspects of mitigation outlined above; or contain the Mitigation Section

with the following sub-sections only;

§ All sectors, Gases (up to parties)

§ Relevant and Priority Mitigation Sector/s

§ Unaccounted Sectors and Gases

§ Mitigation actions used in ITMOs

19. The reporting period for the long-term reports, in PNG’s view if it replaces,

National Communications, should be every five years, consistent with NDC

periodic updates. The fiver year reporting period should be mandatory for

developed country parties, and for developing country parties, the five year

period is the also compulsory, but where they have challenges, they can submit

after the five year period where resource and capacity allows.

20. The mid-term reports, for PNG, if it were to replace the Biennial Update

Reports, should be submitted every 2 and half years; and again be compulsory

for developed country parties, and mandatory in it’s period for developing

country parties, SIDs and LDCs, but where capacity challenges constraint

them, they can be able to submit anytime after that. Again the short term

reports, should be restricted to mitigation only.

Figure 2: Possible Review Component for Action and Support (Non-Domestic Process)

Source : CCDA, Papua New Guinea, 2017

21. The review process, in PNG’s view is one that is intended to support the

transparency and clarity of the information reported in what PNG believes to be

future ‘NDC Implementation Stock-Take Reports’; that may feeds into

Facilitative Dialogue Process. It will be similar to a IAR & ICA but may apply

to all parties, as a round-table dialogue, avoiding potentially the ‘judge and

jury’ vibe experienced in the other existing process

From IAR and ICA to a Facilitative Review Dialogue Process

22. The Transparency Framework on Action and Support which includes the

review aspect, is not a domestic process, and PNG is of the view that this

TransparencyFramework(ReviewComponent)

NDCImplementationStock-TakeReportsSubmissionofReports(Long-termandMid-TermReports)

FromIAR&ICAProcesstoa"FacilitativeReviewDialogueProcess"

process, should be arranged in a manner where it builds off from Article 13.4

and eventually presents itself as a process, which can easily assist the global

stock-take in Article 14 as well or be linked eventually to the global stock take

at some point.

23. The review referred to in Article 13 paragraph 11 and 12 does, not specify the

nature of reviewing GHG inventories, or how a party has met it’s emissions

reductions target. The review process prescribed here refers to a broader

package of understanding how far a party has progressed it’s implementation,

and that should be the basis for establishing a future “Facilitative Review

Dialogue” Process; that will allow parties to understand clarity, comparability

and transparency in the information provided, not directed at auditing GHG

accounting information provided by parties

24. PNG is also of the view that this Review process, should be facilitative and

non-intrusive. This means, reviewers and domestic experts must be able to

share views and ideas on the progress of parties, without experts imposing

ideas and views, contradicting and undermining the good judgement of a party

who has it’s own experts on what is relevant and feasible; rather the review

should be a dialogue amongst all, because even the reviewers reviewing reports

may also benefit from the knowledge and wisdom of national specialists and

experts

25. This concludes PNG’s views contained in this targeted submissions; bearing in

mind that PNG’s ratification law doesn’t recognise the provisions of the CP/21;

our views were guided by Article 13.13. It was also for this reason that we

decided to discuss reporting separate from the review process.

26. We also wanted to additionally flag the importance of the final review

component to the Global Stock-take and the role of the future compliance

committee below;

Linkages with the Global Stock-take (Article 14) and the Compliance

Mechanism (Article 15)

27. The review process, subjected to reporting under the Transparency Framework

should be the platform setter for the Global stock take, which PNG is of the

view that it will guide the role of the Compliance Mechanism and it’s

members. PNG is of the view that the Compliance mechanism, should not be

made up of members with the ‘judge & jury’ role over parties, rather members

who shall through the guidance sought from the maturity of the Transparency

Framework and the Global Stock take shall be able to promote an

‘implementation and compliance’ environment that addresses the

implementation of each party’s NDC, guided by the principles of mutual trust

and confidence.

28. PNG is of the view that the Compliance Committee, will only have a

transparent, non-adversarial and non-punitive manner of guiding

implementation through a friendly compliance process, if they appreciate the

depth and extent of the much needed flexibility in; NDC implementation, NDC

reporting and NDC facilitative reviews. That mutually encompasses an

understanding that all parties are different and will always strive to enhance

their climate change implementation efforts beyond the boundaries of what

they can offer, and according to their ratification aspirations, and not forgetting

their own realistic domestic capacity

The government of Papua New Guinea, avails itself it’s highest consideration

and continued support to the APA co-chairs in progressing and moving

forward the development of this agenda item