UN Climate Change News, 2 December 2019 - On the 7 and 9 December, 10 developed countries will present their actions to meet their 2020 climate targets through a multilateral assessment process. Governments were able to submit their questions for the Multilateral Assessment 3 months before the event. The 10 developed countries have received in total 102 questions from 11 countries. All questions and answers can now be found on the countries’ pages in our Multilateral assessment page.

Transparency is a key element of effective national and international climate action, and the so-called “Multilateral Assessment” is part of the transparency framework under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

This is an important component of increasing climate ambition, crucial to meet the central temperature goal of the Paris Climate Change Agreement, which is to hold the global average temperature rise to as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius and thereby prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

As part of the International Assessment and Review process under the Convention, developed countries prepare reports every two years. These reports are reviewed by a team of qualified technical review experts.

The Multilateral Assessment process allows all 197 Parties to the UNFCCC to ask questions to clarify a country’s actions to curb greenhouse gases and greenhouse gas trends and projections, based on the national reports and their review reports. Reaching the 2020 target and delivery by policies and measures remains the focus of questions posed.

The 10 Parties under the Multilateral Assessment are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Portugal and Switzerland.

Moreover, this year in Madrid, the Side Event “Moving towards the Enhanced Transparency Framework ” will highlight success stories from developed and developing countries in enhancing their Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system for climate action and support, while the secretariat will be presenting the Frequently Asked Questions on the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF). The Side Event will take place in room 4, on Wednesday 4 December 2019, from 13:15-14:45.

Government representatives talk about mitigation actions they are proud of: