PATPA 2022 in review

Partnership on Transparency in the Paris Agreement: 2022 in review

2022 was another year of continual support and collaboration on mutual learning and political dialogue on transparency. Finally, after two years hiatus, we came back to in-person events, albeit keeping online video conferences as part of our repertoire (check out  some of the recordings on PATPA’s YouTube channel). Our events took place in close cooperation with different international organisation, country partners and with the support by experts from the Global South and the Global North, with the aim to enable our partner countries to reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to increase their adaptive capacities effectively, by monitoring and communicating their achievements in the implementation of climate change policies in a transparent manner. Further, the focus laid in preparing countries for their transition to the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) and the preparation of their 1st Biennial Transparency Reports (BTR) to be ready in 2024.

Global level

On a global level, two Partnership Meetings were organized on the side lines of the UNFCCC negotiations: The  26th Partnership Meeting, which took place during the 56th session of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies in Bonn, Germany in June and the 27th Partnership Meeting, which took place at COP27 in November in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. As the main platform for exchange and network among transparency experts, the Partnership Meetings of 2022 focused on prioritizing the transitioning to the ETF, reviewing the work of PATPA and providing an outlook of 2023 PATPA´s activities.

The 11th Annual Partnership Retreat (APR), which serves as a space for conversation among practitioners and negotiators from both developing and developed countries, took place virtually. The 2022 online edition shifted from supporting climate change negotiations to supporting implementation (but still allowing opportunity to discuss negotiation topics). Among the topics discussed were the negotiations on the voluntary review of the information submitted in the BTR related to impacts and adaptation, and the global and national benefits of climate transparency.

Regional level

PATPA’s work in its five regional and language groups involved several workshops and online events in the frame of capacity development and best practice exchanges, on different topics. The Anglophone African regional group focused on the topic of adaptation reporting via the BTR.The Cluster Francophone worked on the topics of greenhouse gas inventories, enhancement of MRV and transparency systems, improving data collection, institutional arrangements, NDC tracking and looked at different tools and methods to improve activity data collection in the land use sector such as the Inventory Software of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and tools such as LEAP , GACMO or the NDC tracking tool developed by FAO.While the Asia regional group worked on the updates on the ETF and Improving Data Collection and Institutional Arrangements  for the AFOLU sector, and prepared two Asia Focal Points meetings that provided an opportunity for learning and exchange among all the countries on the topic of climate transparency and explored options for establishing closer cooperation and communication in the future.

Another highlight of the 2022 PATPA’s regional group work is the successful implementation of the first joint “cross-regional” workshop of the LAC group and Cluster Lusophonewhich brought together 24 partner countries from Lusophone, Latin American and Caribbean countries. The workshop took place in October, in Lisbon, Portugal and treated the topic of understanding of the policy development cycle of adaptation and mitigation measures.

National level

At the national level, PATPA’s Climate Helpdesk, supported capacity development activities in Montenegro, Sao Tomé & Principe, Saudi Arabia and Mozambique. Additional five countries are currently receiving support, including Georgia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Saint Lucia, Vietnam, and Ecuador, and additional support to other countries is planned in 2023.

Knowledge products

Besides these various events, PATPA also launched several policy and guidance documents: A revised version of the Updated Biennial Update Report (BUR) Template to provide guidance to developing countries that have not submitted their first BUR yet, the updated NDC Accounting Study and the Good Practices Study on GHG Inventories for the Waste Sector, for which we are currently also creating a training course. The French and Portuguese versions of the BTR Guidance and Roadmap Tool were completed as well and a Russian version is underway. Additional updates of existing papers have started, including the paper on National Benefits of Climate Reporting, which will be carried out jointly with the UNFCCC secretariat under the mandate of the Consultative Group of Experts (CGE) with several partners working on the transparency field.

Thank you to all PATPA partners

The year 2022 has been a productive year and we would like to thank our partners, in particular the UNFCCC secretariat, the FAO, UNDP, UNEP, CBIT-GSP, UNEP CCC, NDC Partnership, Belgium, citepa (France), Switzerland, Portugal, CPLP, LuxDev, GIR of South Korea, DFFE of South Africa, AA of Germany, GEF, adelphi, Ricardo E&E, Ökoinstitut, ENERDATA, CAOS - Borboletas e Sustentabilidade, Edge Effects, NAP Global Network, Adaptation Committee and many more for their excellent cooperation without which this would have not been possible. We invite you all to stay tuned for the year 2023 and look forward to many more exciting activities for the PATPA partner countries and partner organisations!

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions or feedback: @email

List of Climate Helpdesk missions in 2022:

  • Montenegro:
    • Support in the improvement of GHG emission reduction policies and measures in the framework of an EU-twinning project.
    • technical support to improve greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions estimates within Waste and Agriculture sectors, while respecting the interlinkages between the datasets needed to create air quality and GHG emissions estimates.
  • Sao Tomé & Principe:
    • analysis and review of the Sao Tomé and Príncipe’s first BUR
    • simulation exercise of the International Consultations and Analysis (ICA) in Portuguese language for the country team to broaden understanding on the details and opportunities linked to the ICA and Technical Analysis process.
  • Saudi Arabia: an online exchange on Carbon data infrastructure
  • Mozambique:
    • Training on the rules and procedures of the ICA process and simulation exercise of it.
    • Training in Technical Analysis of REDD+ Technical Annexes.