3 September 1999
ENGLISH ONLY
UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
SUBSIDIARY BODY FOR IMPLEMENTATION
Eleventh session
Bonn, 25 October - 5 November 1999
Item 10 (b) of the provisional agenda
1. At its fourth session, the Conference of the Parties (COP), by its decision 12/CP.4, requested the secretariat to compile and make available to the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) a report containing views and concerns identified by Parties not included in Annex I to the Convention, and to ensure that such views were taken into account in the Global Environment Facility (GEF) review of enabling activities on climate change (FCCC/CP/1998/16/Add.1, decision 12/CP.4, para. 7 (e)). Also, at its tenth session, the SBI invited Parties to submit further views on this matter by 15 July 1999 (FCCC/SBI/1999/8, para. 35 (a)).
2. The SBI requested the secretariat to compile these views and take them into account, together with the views submitted by Parties as stated in document FCCC/SBI/1999/MISC.2, statements made by Parties during the discussion of this agenda item at the tenth session, information included in the initial national communications from non-Annex I Parties and any other guidance Parties may give to the secretariat, as well as all relevant decisions of the COP, when preparing the above-mentioned report decision 12/CP.4, paragraph 7 (e).
3. The secretariat will make this report available for the consideration of the SBI at its eleventh session.
4. Submissions(1) have been received from Chile, Kenya, Sudan and Uzbekistan. In accordance with the procedure for miscellaneous documents, these submissions are attached and reproduced in the language in which they were received and without formal editing.
Paper No. Page
1. Chile 3
2. Kenya 5
3. Sudan 6
4. Uzbekistan 7
TO THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL FACILITY REVIEW OF
According to the draft conclusions by the Chairman of the SBI (set out in Document FCCC/SBI/1999/CRP.4), the Government of Chile submits the following provisional views on the GEF review of enabling activities:
Under the Convention, Parties have acknowledged that the global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities, respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions.
On the other hand, scenarios produced by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change, illustrating that global emissions and concentrations of greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise even with the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and future strengthening of Annex I party commitments, have opened spaces to claim for a more active role of non Annex I countries in pursuing the ultimate objective of the Convention.
It is the view of the Chilean Government that, besides the unquestionable ongoing and meaningful contribution coming from the developing countries to the general abatement task of greenhouse gas emissions and our readiness to explore additional ways to facilitate formalized participation by Parties currently outside the Annex I in such effort, the straightforward manner to allow them, from now, to increase their participation in this urgent endeavour, consists in properly tapping several provisions already existing both in the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol.
Consequently, it is our opinion that the GEF should provide new and additional funds to drastically expand the scope of its ongoing enabling activities program in order to help developing country Parties to:
1. Build capacity for participation in
systematic observation networks to reduce scientific uncertainties
related to the causes, effects, magnitude and timing of climate
change, in accordance with Article 5 of the Convention.
2. Prepare initial and subsequent
national communications, in accordance with Articles 4.3 and 12.5 of
the Convention and paragraph 1(d) of decision 11 /CP.2, by
maintaining and enhancing relevant national capacity to take into
account experiences, including gaps and problems identified in
previous national communications, and eventual new guidelines
established by the Conference of the Parties.
3. Translate, reproduce,
disseminate and make available their national communications
electronically.
4. Conduct studies leading to the
preparation of national programs to address climate change,
compatible with national plans for sustainable development, in
accordance with Article 4.1(b) of the Convention and paragraph 13 of
the annex to decision 10/CP.2; particularly enabling them, in light
of their social and economic conditions and taking into account
state-of-the-art environmentally sound technologies, to identify and
submit to the Conference of the Parties their prioritized technology
needs, especially as concerns to some key technologies needed in
particular sectors of their national economies, conducive to
addressing climate change and minimizing its adverse effects;
5. Develop, strengthen and/or
improve national activities for public awareness and education on
climate change and response measures, in full accordance with Article
6 of the Convention and decision 1 1/CP.1, paragraph 1(b) (iii).
6. Build capacity for
facilitating their participation in the process of design and
implementation of the mechanisms under the Kyoto Protocol at the
national level, and to enhance, through the provision of access to
strategic information and data, their ability to establish policies
conducive to create new investment partnerships under
them.
We would like to note the progress that has been made on the expedited procedures and at the operational level of the GEF itself. There are however difficulties at the local level with the GEF Implementing Agencies that we would like the review to address; like the nature of support, level of priority that the GEF projects enjoy. This should incorporate the length of the project cycle that is taken up by some IAs in processing the project proposals and approval by the GEF Secretariat. In cases where the GEF Secretariat has rejected proposals or cut down on funds requested (if at all) information be given on the basis for action including consultation with STAP where controversy has arisen on the proposals. Other issues to be considered are:
Who are participating in the review process? Have the tripartite reviews of the concluded projects been considered? Issues and concern identified by non-Annex I Parties in the implementation of Enabling Activities, should be brought to the attention of the review team.
Provision of financial assistance to assist in the preparation of 1st National Communication is just one of the areas of the enabling activities.
Other enabling activity areas should be covered in the review.
In response to the call for comments at the fourth session of the Conference of the Parties concerning GEF's review of enabling activities on climate change, Sudan points out the following:
1- Regarding the preparation of the first national communication of non-Annex I Parties, we recommend that the review should elaborate on the fact that there was a technological gap within non-Annex I Parties that might affect results from the first communications. This is the case with regard to the use of national default values in GHG national inventories.
2- The review should also reflect the commutative parallel financing made available for each Party to the conference
When reviewing the enabling activity of the GEF such important issues as flexibility and availability of finances for the non-Annex I Parties should be noted. The priorities should be opportunely determined so as to efficiently response to the problems being revealed during the work on the national communications.
Regional activities require financial and technical support. When carrying out greenhouse gas inventory, many non-Annex I Parties faced the problems requiring prompt solution such as absence of or deficiency in regional emission coefficients, and necessity of finishing the software for the inventory in application to the national circumstances, and improving its analytical potentialities connected with processing of time data series particularly. Attaching priority to the regional multilateral projects in this field would be opportune and desirable. The solution of these problems could be facilitated by holding regional technical workshops on emission factors allowing to exchange experience and approaches to the solution of these problems.
The programme priorities of the GEF should include rendering financial and technical support to the developing countries and countries with economy in transition for establishing national processes, elaborating or correcting national action plans on response to climate change. At present, for Uzbekistan the support for institutional activity on forming and building capacity of national centre on the issues of climate change and Convention implementation is very actual.
By present, a sufficiently large number of issues requiring the GEF reaction has been revealed. The funds for financing the work on the second national communication are required. At this stage, the necessity of the projects on evaluation of energy technologies appears. Support to the projects on regional vulnerability assessment, climate monitoring intensification including observations at indicators (ex., highland glaciers) is required.
1. In order to make these submissions available on electronic systems, including the World Wide Web, these contributions have been electronically imported, scanned and/or retyped. The secretariat has made every effort to ensure the correct reproduction of the texts as submitted.
FCCC/SBI/1999/MISC.5
GE.99-