Development of Technical Guides

Credit: UNFCCC

Countries are striving to plan and take preemptive actions to adapt to climate change. Science is clear that climate change is continuing to exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and increasing the complexity and interconnectivity of risks. Faced with potential residual impacts, countries are calling for greater attention to averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with climate change impacts.

A wealth of technical guidance already exists which countries can make use. The Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM ExCom) sets out to make available technical guides to help navigate stakeholders at different levels and scales toward relevant materials in the domain of the workstreams of the Warsaw International Mechanism. The materials would cover risk assessments and how the resulting loss and damage can be approached.

This page serves as the guidance of the ExCom to its thematic expert groups on further development of the technical guides.

Process to develop the technical guides

The process for initiating the development of the technical guides, as reported to the CMA in the 2020 report of the ExCom, is as follows:

a) The expert groups to discuss topics and preliminary outlines for the technical guides, bearing in mind the mandate contained in decision 2/CMA.2, and communicate their proposals to the WIM ExCom;

b) The WIM ExCom to decide which topics and outlines to endorse, taking into account their potential to promote collaboration and coherence of work across expert groups, and the work will be included in the plans of action of the expert groups as soon as possible.

General principles

The following points need to be taken into account in developing the technical guides:
a) Approaches to averting, minimizing and addressing loss and damage associated with long-term climate risks need to be applicable not only in local contexts but, in some cases, also at the regional level, while countries’ varying capacity to use the technical guides must also be taken into account. The guides should provide practical advice to countries to assist them in implementing various approaches;

b) A broad range of expertise and information should be considered in developing the technical guides, such as information already communicated by countries in national communications, adaptation communications, NAPs and other relevant documents;

c) A great deal of technical guidance on climate risk management already exists. The new technical guides should cover all thematic areas of loss and damage by complementing existing resources and filling any gaps.

The technical guides should be user-friendly and presented in forms applicable to target audiences. Such audiences are expected to span multiple governance levels, and include government and policy-makers, as well as practitioners on the ground.