PAPUA NEW GUINEA’S NATIONALLY DETERMINE CONTRIBUTIONS (NDC) INCEPTION WORKSHOP                                                “THE INCEPTION WORKSHOP FOR THE ENHANCED PNG’s NDC FOR THE 2020 SUBMISSION”                                                                                                           4 September 2020                                                                                      Hilton Hotel, Port Moresby, National Capital District A. BACKGROUND Papua New Guinea (PNG) was one of the first countries to submit its intended Nationally Determined Contribution (iNDC) to the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in September 2015. PNG confirmed the iNDC as its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) in 2016. These submissions provide an overview of PNG’s emissions profile within the national context. They identify opportunities for emissions reductions across key areas—particularly electricity generation, where they set a target of 100 per cent renewables by 2030. It is also committed to sector-wide improvements in energy efficiency and proposes efforts to reduce emissions in the transport and forestry sectors (conditional on the provision of international financial support). The NDC does not provide a deep dive into the actions (and relative scale of emissions reductions) that would be needed to achieve these targets or consider emissions from non-energy sectors such as agriculture and waste in any detail. The outlined goals and targets sit within a broader national policy framework that targets a 50 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050, as part of efforts towards a climate-compatible, responsible and sustainable approach to development. Recent analysis of PNG’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by sector shows the forestry and energy sectors generate the majority of PNG’s emissions. The forestry sector in PNG has traditionally been a carbon sink; this sinking and sequestration ability has been reduced in recent years due to a decrease in forest coverage. A gap analysis from PNG’s first Biennial Update Report to the UNFCCC found that increasing emissions reduction ambition in these two sectors continues to be challenging, given insufficient data as well as limited policy coherence. Under the Paris Agreement, NDCs must be submitted every five years, so updated NDCs are required in 2020, 2025 and 2030. They should be submitted in advance of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) meetings to allow for global synthesis and additional action to be taken to increase ambition. Each successive NDC is intended to represent a progression beyond the previous NDC and reflect the highest possible ambition, given each Party’s specific national circumstances. An updated NDC and a roadmap for its implementation will require a clear understanding of the status of developments across a wide number of sectors. Current assessments, while representing significant progress, are challenged by limited and conflicting data and information. Therefore, the immediate process of revising the NDC provides an opportunity to support collaboration amongst government agencies and increase mutual understanding amongst government, industry and the community for top-priority actions, as well as the roles and responsibilities of different agencies. This will include awareness of additional finance requirements to implement achievable, cost-effective but socially inclusive emissions reductions in the energy and forestry sectors of PNG. The Climate Change and Development Authority (CCDA), as a lead government agency coordinating climate change in the country, strives to coordinate this process through strengthening collaboration with relevant government agencies, private sector, civil society and development partners in PNG. To kick-off the NDC revision process, the CCDA with the support of development partners has pulled together a policy submission on the establishment of a High-level Coordination Committee comprised of ministers and heads of government agencies. The policy submission was endorsed by the National Executive Council in June 2020 under NEC Decision 196/2020. The revision of NDC is supported by a range of development partners, including UNDP, the Climate Action Enhancement Package (CAEP)1 and its partners FAO, Global Green Growth Institute, UNEP, GIZ, and the Government of Australia. The CCDA has taken a stepwise approach to revise NDC and identified scope of work as well as developed a national consolidated plan for revision of NDC. The first series of discussions were held during the NDC lockdown session with CCDA Technical Working Committee (TWC) where TWC members agreed on the ways forward to collect and process data as well as finalise the revision process. B. Objective: The Climate Change and Development Authority in partnership with the support of NDC development partners is intending to hold Inception Workshop to increase understanding of stakeholders on the revision process of PNG’s NDC, discuss work plan and scope of work.