About the in-country support activity 

Background

With the launch of the Paris Agreement's enhanced transparency framework, countries are required to submit their first biennial transparency report (BTR), in accordance with the modalities, procedures and guidelines[1] (MPG), by December 31, 2024. The BTRs, which will replace the biennial update reports (BURs), will provide information on actions taken and progress made on mitigation, adaptation and support provided, required or received. This information gathered through the BTRs will feed into the global stocktake, which will assess collective progress toward long-term climate goals.

As a means of providing support to developing countries, PATPA and FAO developed the BTR Guidance and Roadmap Tool[2] (BTR Tool). This MS Excel-based tool uses a series of questions to elicit answers related to national technical capacities, institutional arrangements and information needed for BTR development. Based on these answers, the tool generates a simple roadmap to help countries manage the process of planning, developing and submitting their BTRs.     

While the roadmap is a valuable resource for countries, there are opportunities to improve the applicability of the BTR tool with the goal of generating an improved roadmap that accurately reflects national circumstances and capacities. To this end, the Partnership on Transparency in the Paris Agreement (PATPA) and the Capacity Building Initiative for Transparency - Global Support Programme (CBIT-GSP) are teaming up to conduct a support activity for the development of a roadmap for the first BTR. This activity will help countries foster the engagement and support of their working teams and relevant stakeholders, support the efficient collection of information for the BTR tool, and generate an improved roadmap to ensure its applicability and implementation. Having an improved roadmap will help countries attract donor funding for both the BTR and the elements of a national transparency system and will support the development of the first BTR in line with the reporting requirements of the enhanced transparency framework.

Addressing the support request 

The team of Azerbaijan approached the CBIT-GSP with the request to support them in developing the BTR roadmap. This activity will help them to immediately start the preparatory process before launching the actual BTR/NC project and discuss the way how the country will report under the first BTR.

Objective of the activity

The activity aims to provide technical support to Azerbaijan in generating the country-specific roadmap for the planning, preparation and submission of the first BTR through the effective application of the PATPA/FAO BTR tool.

Beyond generating a country-specific roadmap, this activity will contribute to:

• Facilitating the improvement of reporting and transparency over time;
• Understand the current status and identify gaps in information, technical capabilities and institutional arrangements necessary for the development of BTRs;
• Build technical and institutional capacity for planning, preparation, management and presentation of BTRs and other climate change reports;
• Sensitize work teams to their roles and responsibilities and involve them early in the BTR development process;

Support long-term planning with respect to the development of BTRs and the implementation of the national transparency system.

Progress in providing the support  

February 9, 2024: Kick-off meeting was held with the team of Azerbaijan to discuss the support of the CBIT-GSP in developing the BTR roadmap. The event brought together the representatives of the National Hydrometeorological Service under the MENR of Azerbaijan, which are the regular experts on GHG Inventory, Adaptation and Support and the experts from RECC, which is an implementing agency of transparency actions at the national level. The CBIT-GSP presented the general approach of the support and discussed the steps which envisage the set-up of the working group, development and enhancement of the road map, which is based on the PATPA/FAO tool, and validation of the road map via presenting it to the broader number of stakeholders, which will be involved in BTR development. The next meeting will be held tentatively by the end of February.

By February 23, 2024, the working team of Azerbaijan was appointed and the questionnaire with all responses has been received.

February 26, 2024: Follow-up meeting was held with the working team of Azerbaijan. The main objective of the meeting was to generate the simple BTR roadmap using the FAO/PATPA tool in Russian/English. The Government of Azerbaijan in the face of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources via RECC and National Hydromet Service, is finalizing its third BUR in the coming months and will start with BTR. It is expected that the working team will start the 1BTR/NC project (via UNEP/GEF support) not earlier than June 2024. It is also expected that the same project team which has been working on 3BUR/NC will continue working on developing the first BTR under the UNFCCC.

In sum-up, the working team stated that they will focus on the following reporting areas under the first BTR (1) GHG Inventory, (2) NDC tracking and mitigation and (3) Adaptation and (4) Support needed and support received. For the reporting areas for REDD+ they will report under other reporting & communication channels. For mitigation, the team will most probably skip reporting on impact assessment of mitigation measures, claiming to use the flexibility mechanisms.

As a result of the follow-up meeting, the simple BTR roadmap was generated. The working team will further work on the enhanced BTR roadmap.  

May 6-7, 2024: Technical Workshop on the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) of the Paris Agreement, which was held in Baku, Azerbaijan and which among other points in the agenda, presented the BTR roadmap to the line ministries and departments as well as representatives from UNFCCC/ETF and BTR teams.
 

[1] Available at https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/resource/CMA2018_03a02E.pdf

[2] Available at https://transparency-partnership.net/publications-tools/btr-guidance-and-roadmap-tool