MRV Capacity Building Workshop in Sierra Leone

CDM Standardized Baselines: opportunities to experience simplified tools for MRV

The ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE), is supporting a Capacity Building Workshop on CDM Standardized Baselines: opportunities to experience simplified tools for MRV in Sierra leone.

The workshop is organised in collaboration with the Environment Protection Agency of Sierra Leone, UNDP Sierra Leone, the UNDP/UNEP Global Support Programme (GSP) and the UNFCCC Regional Collaboration Centre (RCC) of Lome and is also organised in the framework of the West Africa South-South Collaboration Network on MRV established under the UNDP/UNEP Global Support Programme.

Standardized baselines (SB)  were first introduced in 2010 to simplify the determination of baseline for estimating mitigation outcomes in terms of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission reduction in Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM).  Since their introduction SBs have facilitated the determination of baseline GHG emissions in key economic sectors that require intensive processes for data collection, processing, compilation and reporting, providing thereby reliable information to be fed into national Measuring Reporting and Verification (MRV) requirements established under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement.

An overview of the intergovernmental process on climate change and the most important results for MRV highlights that MRV systems at the national level should encompass at least the following key elements:

• Calculation of GHG emission and their reference levels at a national level;
• Tracking of emission reductions in mitigation actions for inclusion in a registry system and assurance of results through a national verification system;
• Tracking of support required and received for inclusion in the registry system and assurance of results through a national verification system;
• Inclusion of all results in international reporting, such as the National Communications, international registries, information hubs as well as associated review processes.

Against this background, the development of SBs represent a propedeutic exercise towards the establishment and/or the strengthening of national MRV systems in specific sectors. In fact, significant synergies are possible between SB development and the establishment of MRV systems, at both institutional and technical levels.

The capacity building workshop is therefore designed to prepare the ground for a development and submission of standardized baselines for Sierra Leone, particularly in the energy sector, and to provide advice and guidance on:

• Methodological and procedural aspects of the development of CDM standardized baselines in the energy sector;
• The MRV concept and the reporting requirements under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement;
• The setting up of solid and sustainable institutional arrangements for MRV;
• The elements for road-testing processes for data collection, processing, compilation and reporting in specific sectors, as component of a broader national MRV system.

Participants

The workshop target audience are participants from relevant ministries and organizations that have a potential role to play in the establishment of the national MRV system in Sierra Leone.