Lusaka, May 9, 2020: COMESA countries will this week participate in a three-day virtual training on the implementation of the Paris Agreement. This initiative is part of capacity building support to Parties and a joint effort between the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the COMESA Secretariat.
The training will focus on the preparation and submission process of new/updated National Determined Contributions (NDCs), the Katowice Guidance, the decision on Information to facilitate Clarity, Transparency and Understanding (ICTU) and its application to the NDC preparation process. The training will be held on 11-13 May 2020.
“This training will help countries as they prepare to present progress recorded towards achieving the NDCs in their biennial transparency reports and the first Global Stocktake of global efforts set for 2023,” COMESA Climate Change Advisor Dr MacClay Kanyangarara said in a statement issued in Lusaka.
The training is structured in three stages which include the preparatory stage were participants define their expectations, prepare questions and familiarize themselves with the training materials. This will be followed by two-days training stage on the NDC process and one day of individual work to apply the guidance to their country’s NDC.
The third is the follow-up stage, during which participants will provide feedback on the training and indicate whether its objectives and their expectations have been achieved.
An online help desk, live chat option to provide information related to the training and its objectives will be offered.
Article 4.2 of the Paris Agreement (PA) requires each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive nationally determined contributions that it intends to achieve. These individual contributions make up the global response to climate change. The goal of the PA is to limit global temperature rise to well below 20oc and usher in a low emission future.
Countries are to submit their new or updated NDCs in 2020 and then every five years thereafter. In doing so, countries are encouraged to reflect their highest possible ambition.
The virtual training will be facilitated by Bernd Hackmann the Programme Officer, in the Transparency Division at the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn Germany.
Participants are expected to be drawn from Comoros, Eswatini, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia