Climate Change Activity 2(b)
NAMAs -- Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions

Publications

--- TERI-NFA Working Paper(s)

--- Policy Briefs

Coming Soon...

--- Research Letters - Mitigation Talks


--- Research papers/ Working papers/ Conference proceedings/ Policy briefs

  • What does the current NAMA-space in South Africa look like?
    A TERI-NFA NAMA Country Report on South Africa. Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa. April, 2014
    Anya Boyd, Kim Coetzee, and Michael Boulle

    Internationally South Africa is regarded as a leader in Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) development, but is this actually the case? Similarly to other countries, South Africa has yet to formally submit a NAMA to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change registry, nor have mitigation actions been articulated as NAMAs at a domestic policy level. This is not to say, however, that mitigation activities are not happening – in the areas of energy efficiency and renewable energy significant progress has been made in South Africa. Yet these cannot be attributed to the NAMA concept per se. Rather, the drivers relate to energy policy and – very broadly speaking – national climate change objectives as outlined in the current National Climate Change Response Strategy. This paper reviews how South African NAMAs are presented in international literature and how this compares to mitigation actions and national policy development and implementation. It finds that there is disjuncture between what is reflected in the literature and what is observable in South Africa.

    Full text

  • Wither multilateralism? Implications of bilateral NAMA finance for development and sovereignty concerns of developing countries
    Development and Mitigation Forum, Cape Town, 27-29 January 2014
    Manish Kumar Shrivastava and Prabhat Upadhyaya

    The concept of sovereignty has been considerably redefined by the environmental challenges, particularly those with global implications. While the sovereign right of countries to exploit natural resources (and protect the environment) within national boundaries has been recognized, how this right may be exercised by countries has been facing increasing threat of restrictions on account of the possible negative impacts it may have on other countries and global environment. For developing countries a multilateral regime to address global problems is better suited than a bilateral regime on account of sovereignty concerns. Space to bargain for legitimate space for determining national development agenda, as well as for negotiating a capability enhancing non-intrusive arrangement towards contributing to the global solutions, is relatively wider under multilateral processes – more so, because developing countries can benefit from collective bargaining power. These options are either not available or restricted in a bilateral setting. In the context of climate change, provision of financial support to developing countries under the UNFCCC is one such capabilityenhancing non-intrusive arrangement. However, the many bilateral channels of climate finance have reduced the effective bargaining space for developing countries. Many of the terms of these bilateral channels to support Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions are in conflict with the long standing negotiating positions of developing countries on climate finance. Hence, implementation of bilaterally supported climate action puts developing countries' negotiating stances in a contradictory position. Moreover, these terms may be influencing the development agenda in favour of mitigation over development.

    Full text

  • Mainstreaming development imperatives into NAMAs: An Approach
    Development and Mitigation Forum, Cape Town, 27-29 January 2014
    Manish Kumar Shrivastava, Neha Pahuja, Ritika Tewari, Nimisha Pandey and Swati Agarwal

    NAMAs (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions) in developing countries are a political choice, given the complexity of issues involved at national as well as international level. There are political implications in which mitigation actions are reported as NAMAs, and which of the emerging categories of NAMAs (domestic, supported, credited, hybrid, mutually appropriate, sectoral etc) they are assigned to. These actions need to conform to countries’ positions in climate negotiations, particularly on climate finance, technology transfer, capacity building and measurement, reporting and verification. They also need to ensure socio-political acceptability and economic viability in a national context of sustainable development. This paper offers a structured approach to making these decisions. Building on the review of climate negotiations, and national policies in developing countries along with stakeholder consultations, it develops an approach arranging a range of criteria clubbed under key desirable outcome clusters. Recognising that each criterion within an outcome cluster may have different significance for a country, and scoring against a criterion may involve multiple options, towards which countries may have different positions, the approach allows individual countries to reflect their weighting for each criterion within an outcome cluster and attitudes towards various options for a criterion. Accordingly, each outcome cluster gets positive and negative scores depending upon the specific project details. These scores are intended to assist the decision-makers in deliberating on and comparing various NAMA proposals, their eligibilities, acceptability and categories. Moreover, the negative scores also provide an indication how a proposal which is rejected can be revised and modified to achieve an appropriate scale and design.

    Full text

  • Towards an understanding of the variables that affect implementation of mitigation actions
    MAPS/ TERI - NFA Working paper No.10, TERI. 2013.
    Boyd, A., Coetzee, K.

    One key focus of current climate discourse is the need to raise the level of ambition of collective emission reductions in order to protect the climate (UNEP, 2012). Any emission reductions outlined, however, remain hollow gestures unless translated into actions implemented on the ground. The implementation of mitigation actions (MAs) thus requires public policy interventions at domestic level. Due to the emerging nature of MAs there is at the time of writing (July 2013), no standardised approach to the implementation of mitigation policy in developing countries. This paper considers whether the implementation of MA policy in developing countries would be subject to similar impediments as other (non - mitigation related) public policy interventions. It focuses on case studies drawn from South Africa and Mitigation Action Plans and Scenarios (MAPS) projects in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru. Based on previous desktop studies and interviews with MAPS researchers, several variables have been identified as having the potential to pose risks to the implementation of MAs. These include finance, technical capacity, vested interests, and social acceptance of the policies. This analysis proposes that MAs are more likely to be implemented if a range of possible impediments or risks to implementation are considered earlier in the planning and selection stages. In order to test this approach rigorously, more policies explicitly aimed at implementing MAs are needed, and more attempts at implementing MAs need to be made. This working paper forms a basis for further research that considers policy and implementation.

    Full Text

  • Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions: An approach to design, label and Monitor

    Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions: An approach to design, label and Monitor Policy Brief, November 2013
    Manish Kumar Shrivastava, Neha Pahuja, Ritika Tewari, Nimisha Pandey, and Swati Agarwal.

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  • Breaking the Climate Deadlock: Analysing the change-in circumstances

    Discussion Paper, The 18th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 2012, Doha, Qatar.
    Leena Srivastava and Neha Pahuja

    Breaking the Climate Deadlock: Analysing the change-in circumstances Twenty years ago in 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) was agreed upon by most Parties to combat the global challenges posed by climate change. An important premise of the Convention was differentiation amongst developed and developing countries. The very same issue of differentiation is now being regarded as the biggest bottleneck in the climate negotiations. This paper looks at the relevance of this differentiation by analysing changes in the 'national circumstances' of the Parties over the last few decades. The analysis is based on comparing the indicators of change. The paper, therefore, attempts to validate the claim that results in the current impasse in climate negotiations - the notion of change-in circumstances and that of major emerging economies. The paper concludes that the 'national circumstances' of developing countries have changed only incrementally. Further, this incremental progress has not been able to push developing countries to be comparable to the circumstances that existed in developed countries in 1992 and even twenty years before that in 1972. Also, the paper points out that the term 'major emerging economy' could only be recognized as a misnomer given that the 'circumstances' in one of the so-called major emerging economy, are not even at par with the average of the developing countries. The authors, however, note the importance of considering other indicators of change in a future study to give better understanding of the change-in 'national circumstances'.

    Full text

  • Nationally appropriate mitigation actions: A vehicle for green economy

    Breaking the Climate Deadlock: Analysing the change-in circumstances Green Growth and Development Quarterly - Vol 1(2), January 2013
    Manish Kumar Shrivastava

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  • Issues and options for designing and implementing NAMAs: findings from an online survey

    NAMA technical briefing Annual NAMA Status Report 2013 for the 'Mitigation Momentum Project' of Ecofys and ECN.
    Neha Pahuja and Swati Agarwal

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Events

Developing Country Participation in Addressing Climate Change: Analyzing Issues and Options for Implementing NAMAs

Date: 24 July 2014
Venue: Jacaranda I, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

As part of the long term partnership between TERI and The Royal Norwegian Embassy in India, the project on 'Developing Country Participation in Addressing Climate Change: analyzing issues and options for implementing NAMAs, TERI organized an international event on 24th July 2014, at Jacaranda-I Hall, India Habitat Center in New Delhi. Dr Prodipto Ghosh, Distinguished Fellow and Director, TERI invited H E , Eivind S Homme, Ambassador, The Royal Norwegian Embassy for his remarks on the on the theme of the event. On the occasion Mr. J. M. Mauskar, Former Special Secretary, MoEF and Advisor, ORF delivered the keynote address on 'Policies and Measures for Mitigation in Developing Countries'. He noted that the approach developed by TERI for assessing appropriateness of NAMAs is an useful contribution and may help in articulating the intended nationally determined contributions in the ambiguity of the climate negotiation outcomes.

The event brought together the project partners from BASIC countries including Dr. Fei Teng, Tsinghua University; Ms Kim Coetzee, ERC, University of Cape Town; and Prof. Carolina Dubeux, COPPE/Federal University of Rio de Janeiro who presented the key findings of the project 'Analyzing issues and options for implementing NAMAs' and deliberated on their country perspective on the ‘NAMA deliberation tool' designed by TERI. Mr Job Taminiau from the Join Implementation Network and University of Delaware, and Mr Tobias Dorr from GIZ-India also shared their perspectives on harmonization of various mechanisms under the UNFCCC and the perspective of NAMA Facility respectively in facilitating NAMA implementation. The event witnessed participation from various experts, funding agencies, corporates, government organization, and multilaterals working in the field for meaningful deliberation during the event. H E Ambassador Eivind S Homme said that the study and continued partnership between TERI and The Royal Norwegian Embassy are beneficial for global good.

Agenda | Background Note | Presentations


Determining National Appropriateness of a Mitigation Action

Date: 15 November 2012
Venue: TERI, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

TERI organized a roundtable on “Determining National Appropriateness of a Mitigation Action” on 15th November 2012 in New Delhi at Conference Room, 4th Floor, TERI, India Habitat Centre as part of the study titled "Developing country participation in addressing climate change: Analyzing issues and options for implementing NAMAs and REDD Plus" which aims to develop a framework and criteria to determine 'national appropriateness’ of mitigation actions in developing countries under changing national and international circumstances. In the roundtable, the first draft of the framework and criteria was presented. It was developed on the basis of an analysis of various NAMA proposals in the NAMA-Database, inputs received during the Stakeholder consultation held on 11th August 2011 in New Delhi and a questionnaire survey from different stakeholders from South Asia. Following the presentation, inputs were sought from the invited participants through an open, free-flowing exchange of views towards improving the framework and criteria and making it more rigorous, dynamic and politically acceptable. The exchange of views was moderated by Dr. Arabinda Mishra, Director, Earth Science and Climate Change Division, TERI.

Agenda and Programme | Proceedings | Presentation - Designing Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions An Approach TERI


DNA of NAMAs in Developing Countries

Date: 10 October 2012
Venue: Colombo

Session during the Climate Action Network-South Asia’s (CANSA) Annual Regional Technical Workshop, 10-11 October 2012.
TERI along with Vasudha (Delhi) and Centre for Science and Environment (Delhi) organized a technical session on NAMAs during the second Annual Regional Technical Workshop of CANSA. The purpose of the session was to update the civil society members from the South Asian Region and facilitate a dialogue on a range of issues related to NAMAs such as, the meaning and definition of NAMAs, international politics behind NAMAs, relevance of NAMA registry, potential NAMAs etc. Sudhir Sharma from UNEP Risoe presented on the evolution and status of NAMA Registry. Srinivas from Vasudha presented on the larger discourse and negotiations around the issue of NAMAs. Chandra Bhushan from CSE discussed the history behind the origin of the concept of NAMAs and potential NAMAs. Manish Shrivastava from TERI presented an analysis of the proposed/ongoing NAMAs listed in the NAMA Database managed by Ecofys. It focused on the broader trend and thinking on the type of policy or projects being considered as NAMAs and the underlying justification behind such consideration. The session was followed by small break-away group discussions with about 40 participants from civil society members and climate policy researchers in South Asia.

Presentation - Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions Examples and Issues_Manish Kumar Shrivastava_TERI

 

COP17 Side Event– Analyzing issues and options for implementing NAMAs

Date: 29 November 2011
Venue: Indwe Room, ICC, Durban

TERI, along with project collaborators ERC (Energy Research Centre) of the University of Cape Town (South Africa), Vitae Civilis (Brazil) the Tsinghua University (China) together presented the interim findings of research under the project. The presentations reflected on the thinking and action on the NAMAs (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions) in the BASIC (Brazil, South Africa, India, China) countries. The side event focused on bringing the BASIC country perspectives on an international mechanism for NAMAs and analysis of its linkages at national level, building on multi-criteria decision making methods to define 'appropriateness'. While in China there has been considerable effort on laying out a strong monitoring and evaluation plan and links to the twelfth plan, in South Africa it was noted that there has been considerable progress in the identification of NAMAs in some sectors. However, significant amount of work still needs to be undertaken in the select areas and its linkages to MRV (Measurable, Reportable, and Verifiable) processes identified.


Stakeholder consultation on 'Analyzing Issues and Options for implementing NAMA's - A Developing Country Perspective'

Date: 11 August 2011
Venue: TERI, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

The first Stakeholder consultation on ‘Analyzing Issues and Options for implementing NAMA’s – A Developing Country Perspective’ was organized by TERI in New Delhi on 11th August 2011. The stakeholder workshop was organized as a part of the second phase under a larger project titled “Developing country participation in addressing climate change: Analyzing issues and options for India”, being undertaken by an association between TERI and MFA, Norwegian Embassy. Interim findings of the first work package of the study were presented in front an audience of policy makers, academicians and representatives from the civil society and the business community. The event started with a discussion on understanding the different perspectives from different stakeholders’ i.e. policy, research, civil society and legal on what ‘nationally appropriate’ entails in NAMAs. While it was agreed that the current knowledge on NAMAs is quite inadequate with several open ended questions at present, all the speakers spoke in consensus that NAMAs should be based on national priorities of social and economic development, while discussing the need for clear and common guidelines for methodologies and MRV issues surrounding NAMAs for developing nations Next, the research framework of the study was presented and expert comments of various stakeholders were gathered for further refinement of the work. The BASIC nation representatives then expressed their country perspectives and expectations from the developing NAMA framework. The last session focused on the issues and options in designing and implementing NAMAs for India. The discussions saw a lively dialogue between policy makers, civil society and industry representatives, who shared their previous experiences and voiced their anticipations on NAMAs. The workshop ended with concluding remarks from representative of the Norwegian Embassy and Dr. Arabinda Mishra, Director, Climate Change Division, TERI.

Proceedings | Presentations - Click here for sessions

 

Others - 'Dissemination of project findings through other national / international platforms'

  • Presentations at the UNFCCC Asia Pacific Regional Workshop on NAMAs

    TERI was invited as a resource person for the Annual Regional Workshop on NAMAs organized by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat in Lao PDR. Outputs of the NFA work were presented in the sessions on 'NAMA preparation and implementation process' and 'MRV'. The workshop was the first in 2014 for building capacity of countries of the region to conceptualize, design and implement NAMAs. Apart from TERI, UNEP Risoe, FAO, UNDP, ETH Zurich, GIZ, Global Green Growth Institute, CCAP, UNCCD, Danish Energy Agency, OECC, NAMA Facility and European Union Commission also participated in the workshop.

    1. An evaluation framework to facilitate NAMA prioritization
    2. Options and methodologies for developing baselines for different categories of NAMAs


  • International Conference on 'Urban Development with Climate Co-benefits: Aligning Climate, Environmental and Other Development Goals in Cities'

    Urban Development with Climate Co-benefits Project findings were presented in the context of role of co-benefits in climate policy making at the International Conference on 'Urban Development with Climate Co-benefits: Aligning Climate, Environmental and Other Development Goals in Cities' held on 9th December, 2013 at India Habitat Centre Complex, New Delhi, India.






  • Presentation at NAMA technical briefing in SBI 39, Warsaw, Poland, November 2013

    NAMA technical briefing TERI presented on identifying the options and methodologies for developing baselines for different categories of NAMAs. The technical briefing, which was organized in the sidelines of COP 19, was part of SBI work programme to further the understanding of the diversity of NAMAs. The session was attended by country representatives from all the world regions.

    The presentation can be accessed here.



  • Presentation at Summer School on 'Tracking Progress and MRV for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions' by International Partnership on Mitigation and MRV, Viet Nam, August 2013

    Tracking Progress and MRV for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions TERI presented an 'evaluation framework to facilitate design and evaluation of NAMAs at the national level', developed as a part of the NFA study . The Summer School was attended by policy makers, practitioners and negotiators representing 19 developing and developed countries from all the world regions.

    The presentation can be accessed here.




  • Presentation at Regional Workshop in Promoting international collaboration to facilitate preparation, submission and implementation of NAMAs in Asia and Pacific, Singapore, August 2013

    Promoting international collaboration to facilitate preparation TERI presented an 'evaluation framework to facilitate design and evaluation of NAMAs at the national level', developed as a part of the NFA project. The workshop, conducted by UNFCCC to enhance the capacity of countries from Asia and Pacific on NAMAs, was attended by 19 countries of the region and had representatives from donor agencies and multilateral bodies.

    The presentation can be accessed here.