The climate change adaptation is a critical concern for developing countries and in particular for Pakistan owing to the fragility of its ecosystems and its vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, said Naheed Shah Durrani, Secretary Ministry of Climate Change while addressing two-day workshop on launch of National Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) System for GHG Inventory and M&E Adaptation Tracking System (initially for agriculture) in Islamabad today.
She said that building resilience to climate change is a key focus of National Climate Change Policy of Govt of Pakistan and the government will ensure its cooperation with national and local agencies.
The Ministry of Climate Change has developed a Policy Framework to showcase Government of Pakistan commitment to the world, she further added.
Pakistan despite being the 5th largest population in the world and a small contributor to global GHG emissions (less than 1%) is committed to reduce its GHG emissions. The national GHG inventory project aims at developing a framework for compiling GHG inventories, data collection, data sharing, data reporting and institutional arrangements, according to the UNFCCC guidelines and Paris Agreement.
The two-day workshop and training has been organized by Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC), and CITEPA, with support from GIZ Pakistan and NDC Partnership.
Mr. Arif Goheer (Head of Agriculture and Coordinator -GCISC) said that as per Paris Agreement, all countries are required to produce reliable, transparent and comprehensive information on GHG emissions, climate actions and support under the Enhanced Transparency Framework. He explained that the new international adopted framework will enable the implementation of mitigation, adaptation and support actions as well as their monitoring over time. This monitoring will be reported on a regular basis as part of the BTR (Biennial Transparency Report) which will replace the BUR (Biennial Updated report) by 2025.
In this context, the inventory of GHG emissions as well as the action monitoring indicators are essential for the monitoring and confidence of the international community. In this context the national GHG inventory project which aims at developing a framework for compiling the GHG inventories on regular basis is carried out at GCISC. He further explained the importance of developing the adaptation tracking mechanism, which will not only aid in the national climate change adaptation planning process but also will support in preparing the Adaptation Communication (ADCOM) for UNFCCC.
The participants also discussed the recently developed IT platform for GHG Mitigation, which is functional and is housed at GCISC. The IT platform has been developed with cooperation from CITEPA and GIZ. The aim of the platform is to track and manage climate change sectoral data. This has been developed under the Enhanced Transparency Framework, under the Paris Agreement, where all countries are required to produce reliable, transparent and comprehensive information on GHG emissions.
The IT system will enable Pakistan to track climate change actions, for transparent reporting for better coordination and communication with local and national agencies said by Mr. Irfan Tariq, DG, MOCC.
Mr. Baptiste Charte, Climate change coordinator of GIZ-Pakistan said that developed MRV framework will not only facilitate in international reporting but also will ensure the international financial support to Pakistan on climate change actions.
The purpose of day-one of training was to introduce and launch the Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) System for GHG inventories and to get inputs from the key stakeholders for the development of M& E System for Adaptation Tracking in the Agriculture Sector.
The importance of climate change adaptation, stating that adaptation is a critical concern for developing countries and in particular for Pakistan owing to the fragility of its ecosystems and its vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. She said that building resilience to climate change is a key focus of national Climate Change Policy of Govt of Pakistan and the government will ensure its cooperation with national and local agencies.
Naheed Shah Durrani, Secretary Ministry of Climate Change thanked GIZ, Citepa and GSCIC for helping the government and ministry of climate change in making Pakistan more responsive and more robust in fulfilling UNFCCC and Paris Agreement.
