I. General Considerations on the Adaptation Communication

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1 LMDC SUBMISSION ON FURTHER GUIDANCE IN RELATION TO THE ADAPTATION COMMUNICATION, INCLUDING AS A COMPONENT OF NATIONALLY DETERMINED CONTRIBUTIONS UNDER THE PARIS AGREEMENT The Republic of Ecuador is pleased to present this submission on behalf of the Like-Minded Developing Countries on Climate Change (LMDC) on the proposals for elements and skeleton outlines as contained in the Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA). In accordance with paragraph 24(a) of the Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA) on the third part of its first session (FCCC/APA/2017/2) and taking into consideration the contents of the informal note prepared by the Co-facilitators, the Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC) Group in the UNFCCC would like to make the following focused submission on the proposals for elements and skeleton outlines as contained in that note. I. General Considerations on the Adaptation Communication 1. Adaptation is a global challenge faced by all with local, national, regional and international dimensions, while the developing countries have urgent and immediate needs on adaptation referred to in Article 4 of the Convention and in Article 7 of the Paris Agreement. Adaptation should be treated on an equal footing with mitigation in the implementation of the Convention and its Paris Agreement. Developed country Parties shall fulfill their obligations under the Convention and its Paris Agreement of providing adequate and continuous finance, technology and capacity-building support to developing country Parties to assist them with respect to enhancing adaptation efforts. 2. In accordance with Article 3 of the Paris Agreement, nationally determined contribution (NDCs) are to include mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation, in line with differentiated responsibilities and obligations of developed and developing country Parties under the Paris Agreement. Adaptation is an important component of NDCs, which should be treated in a balanced manner with mitigation component of NDCs. 3. Adaptation communication will highlight the contributions to climate actions that countries intend to employ in response to the impacts of climate change, which will be helpful for Parties to exchange best practices on adaptation. For developing countries Parties, adaptation communication will be a useful policy instrument for them to identify their needs on finance, technology development and transfer and capacity-building support for adaptation actions. 1

2 4. Developing countries are faced with more obstacles due to their insufficient capacities of vulnerability assessment, policy planning, early warning systems, climate risk management and implementation. Continuous, adequate and progressive support shall be provided to developing country Parties for the preparation, communication and implementation of their adaptation communication, in order to increasing resilience and reducing vulnerability and to enhance their capacity to adapt climate change over time. Furthermore, flexibility should be provided to developing country Parties when they prepare, communicate and implement their adaptation communications, to avoid creating additional burden for developing countries referring Article 7.10 of the Paris Agreement. 5. Under no circumstance the preparation, communication and implementation of the adaptation communication should be taken as a condition or requisite for developing country Parties to access for finance, technology or capacity building from developed country Parties or any international agency. II. Skeleton including on Elements for the Adaptation Communication 1. Guiding Principles for the Adaptation Communication (a) Article Adaptation communication is a policy instrument to achieve increase the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. Adaptation communication should be prepared, communicated and implemented in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication; (b) Article 2.2 of the Paris Agreement Guidance for adaptation communication should reflect equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in the light of different national circumstances; (c) Article 3 of the Paris Agreement Parties are to communicate and undertake their contributions on mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation in accordance with relevant provisions of the Paris Agreement; (d) Article 7.1 of the Paris Agreement Parties are to establish the global goal on adaptation of enhancing adaptive capacity, strengthening resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change; (e) Articles 7.6 and 7.13 Support and international cooperation is fundamental for developing country Parties to adapt climate change and their needs should be fully taken into account; (f) Article 7.9 of the Paris Agreement Parties to engage in adaptation planning processes and implementation actions; 2

3 (g) Articles 7.10 of the Paris Agreement - Additional burden cannot be created for developing countries and flexibility should be provided to developing country Parties; and (h) Article 7.11 of the Paris Agreement Adaptation communication to be submitted and updated as a component of or in conjunction with other communications or documents, including a national adaptation plan (NAPs), a nationally determined contribution (NDCs) and/or a national communication (NatComs); (i) Articles 9.1, 10 and 11 Developed country Parties shall provide finance, technology and capacity-building support to developing country Parties for the preparation, communication and implementation of their adaptation actions. 2. Purposes of the Adaptation Communication (a) Providing reference or assistance for Parties preparation of adaptation communication, including in particular assisting developing country Parties to identify their needs of finance, technology development and transfer and capacity-building on adaptation actions; (b) Facilitate the clarity, transparency and understanding of Parties adaptation actions and developed country Parties adaptation support to be provided; (c) Enhancing and catalyzing support from developed country Parties to developing country Parties for adaptation plans and actions; and (d) Raising the profile of adaptation and recognizing adaptation efforts of developing country Parties, to ensure the parity between mitigation and adaptation. (e) Furthermore, adaptation actions and mitigation actions share mutual global climate goals. Adaptation communication highlights these common goals, enhances the importance of adaptation efforts and serves as a source of input into global stocktake as appropriate. 3. Elements for the Adaptation Communication (a) General list of elements for all Parties to choose in a nationally-determined manner in their adaptation communications, regardless of the vehicles for communication: (1) National circumstances, including legal framework and institutional arrangements; (2) Impacts, vulnerabilities and risk assessments; (3) National adaptation priorities; 3

4 (4) National policies, plans, actions, strategies and/or programs and projects to be implemented; (5) Economic diversification plans; (6) Best practices, experience and lessons learned in the area of adaptation; and (7) Other information related to adaptation actions if applicable, taking into the previous decisions adopted by the COP on national communications, NAPs and NDCs information. (b) Specific elements for adaptation communication for Parties opting-in to employ NDCs as a vehicle for communication (1) Description of efforts to build resilience and reduce vulnerability; (2) Areas of the adaptation component of NDCs (e.g. economic diversification, sustainable management of natural resources, etc.); (3) International/regional collaboration to implement the adaptation component of NDCs. (c) Basic or minimum set of elements for developed country Parties adaptation communications, regardless of the vehicles for communication: (1) Indicative support for developing country Parties adaptation actions by developed countries, including finance, technology and capacity-building, in accordance with Articles 4.8, 9.5, 10 and 11 of the Paris Agreement and paragraphs 27 and 55 of decision 1/CP.21, as well as taking into account relevant information requirements as set out in decision 19/CP.18; (2) Specifically, the information on finance may include, inter alia: base year, period for implementation, quantitative amount in the following two years and five years, sources, including ratio between public and other resources, delivery channels, areas and priorities of support, relevant assumptions and methodologies for accounting the financial resources, estimating public finance, identifying resources mobilized by public interventions and other policies and attributing private investment, actions to make available the public finance, policies to attract finance flows from other resources and the causality between public interventions and mobilized investments, and fairness and ambition including why such financial resources are new and additional and how such financial support will assist developing 4

5 country Parties to implement their adaptation actions. (3) The information on technology may include, inter alia: types of support, relevant amount of financial resources to be provided, delivery channels, areas and priorities of support, programmes and projects to be conducted by public agencies, plans and policies to encourage the participations by business and research institutes, measures on incentivizing innovation, promoting international collaboration on R&D, demonstration and deployment and facilitating the access to technologies and address barriers to their transfer to developing countries, relevant methodologies and assumptions on estimating their support, and fairness and ambition, including how such support will assist developing country Parties to implement their adaptation actions and increase their access to adaptation related technologies and know-how. (4) The information on capacity-building may include, inter alia: types of support, relevant amount of financial resources to be provided, delivery channels, areas and priorities of support, policies, programmes and projects in different areas of capacity-building, relevant methodologies and assumptions on estimating their support, and fairness and ambition, including how such support will assist developing countries to strengthen their capacities on adapting climate change. (d) Basic or minimum set of elements for developing country Parties adaptation communications, regardless of the vehicles for communication: 4. Vehicles (1) Costs, barriers and support needed and received for the implementation of their adaptation actions, including finance, technology development and transfer, and capacity-building; and (2) Adaptation efforts of developing country Parties that need to be recognized as their contributions to combating climate change. (a) Although there are three vehicles for Parties to choose when communicating their adaptation communication, i.e., National Communication, National 5

6 Adaptation Plans and Nationally Determined Contributions documents. The LMDC believes that among these three vehicles for adaptation communication, the most preferable one is NDCs, which will help developing country Parties record greater prominence and visibility to adaptation, attract more attentions from the international community on their adaptation actions and catalyze more support from developed country Parties and relevant international agencies. (b) Furthermore, including adaptation as a component of their NDCs will not create burden for developing countries since adaptation is more urgent for their survival and sustainable development. Even if a developing country Party chooses adaptation as a component of their NDC, there will be no mandatory requirement for that developing country Party to report the progress made in implementation and put the information on adaptation under the technical expert review and facilitative multilateral consideration of progress, because of the wording should in Article 13.8 of the Paris Agreement, unless that developing country Party decides to do so. (c) Additionally, the various optional vehicles prescribed in the Paris Agreement for the adaptation communication are at different levels of maturity for existing guidance available to Parties, this calls for the need to develop specific guidance for the adaptation communication submitted and updated periodically, as a component of or in conjunction with a nationally determined contribution as referred to in Articles 4.2 and 7.11 of the Paris Agreement. The following is an additional list of motive driving the aforementioned needs: (1) Unlike NAPs and NatComs, which have existed prior to the Paris Agreement and have also enjoyed several years of Parties experience in adhering to their requirements and many years of Parties working towards their advancement to overcome any gaps in implementation, NDCs are a new product of the Paris agreement. (2) Similarly, NAPs and NatComs have established programs, institutional arrangements and clear guidance, while all organizational and international administrative arrangements related to NDCs are being negotiated, including the simple arrangement for a public registry for NDCs. (3) Article 3 of the Paris Agreement clearly specifies the purpose the NDCs are meant to serve in relation to the Paris Agreement and therefore NDCs serve the Paris Agreement in a clear a distinct manner that is different from NAPs and NatComs. (4) Many Parties have already opted to provide information and communicate their adaptation actions and plans through their existing NDCs. 5. Linkages between Adaptation Communications and Other Issues Related to the Implementation of the Paris Agreement 6

7 (a) Adaptation communication is a component of NDCs. The adaptation communication under the APA Item 4 has a linkage with issues under the APA Item 3. Therefore, a joint consultation between the two items should be convened as early as possible to discuss such linkage. (b) Adaptation communication has a strong linkage with the mechanisms on finance, technology development and transfer and capacity-building under the Convention and its Paris Agreement. The information from the adaptation communication should serve a crucial source of input for those mechanisms to identify the needs of developing country Parties and plan their work in the future. (c) The work under APA Item 4 should be informed by the work on adaptation under other bodies, including in particular recognition of adaptation efforts, assessment of adaptation needs and review of the adequacy of adaptation support under the Adaptation Committee, as referred to in paragraphs 41, 42 and 45 of decision 1/CP.21. Furthermore, the work under APA Item 4 should be also informed by the work under the SBI and SBSTA on finance, technology development and transfer and capacity-building. (d) Both difference and linkage exist between information in the adaptation communication and enhanced transparency framework in Article 13 of the Paris Agreement. On one hand, information related to adaptation communication is different from the information under the enhanced transparency framework in Article 13 of the Paris Agreement. The former, through either of the three vehicles, is for Parties adaptation plans to be implemented and efforts to be undertaken in the future. And the latter is for the progress made in implementing those plans, policies, actions and programmes that have been put forward in the adaptation communication. On the other hand, there could be similar information for both adaptation communication and adaptation progress under the transparency framework, only for the purpose of not creating additional burdens for developing country Parties. It is up to each developing country Party concerned to put forward the information for adaptation communication in a way they believe that will avoid additional burdens, either in as much detail as possible with the information under the transparency framework, or less detailed than the information under the transparency framework. Nevertheless, the communication of the information both for adaptation communication and reporting under the transparency framework depends on adequate and continuous support provided by developed country Parties to cover the costs incurred by developing country Parties in preparing such communication and information. ****** 7