15,808 research outputs found
ICAT’S work in the Dominican Republic
No full textICAT began working with the Dominican Republic in 2017. The initiative is partnering with the Dominican Republic National Council for Climate Change and the Clean Development Mechanism (CNCCMDL). The project purpose is to support the country to develop a national level institutional framework for MRV of climate actions under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
Transparency in Global Environmental Governance: A Coming of Age?
No full textThis introductory article draws on the contributions to this special issue to consider the implications of a transparency turn in global environmental and sustainability governance. Three interrelated aspects are addressed: why transparency now? How is transparency being institutionalized? And what effects does it have? In analyzing the spread of transparency in governance, the article highlights the broader (contested) normative context that shapes both its embrace by various actors and its institutionalization. I argue that the effects of transparency-whether it informs, empowers or improves environmental performance-remain uneven, with transparency falling short of meeting the ends many anticipate from it. Nonetheless, as the contributions to this issue make clear, transparency has indeed come of age as a defining feature of our current and future politics. (c) 2010 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Transparenting Transparency: Intial Empirics and Policy Applications
No full textMajor conceptual contributions of a number of Nobel-laureates in putting forth a framework linking the citizenry's right to know and access to information with development, have already had a major influence in various fields. However, implementation of transparency-related reforms on the ground remains checkered around the globe. Further, in contrast with other dimensions of governance -such as rule of law and regulatory burden-, there is a gap between the extent of the conceptual contributions in the transparency field and the progress on its measurement and empirical analysis, which has been wanting. Our paper is a contribution attempting to partly fill these empirical and policy-related gaps. We contribute to empirics by undertaking an initial construction of a transparency index for 194 countries based on over twenty 20 independent sources. An Unobserved Component Model (UCM) was used to generate the country ratings and the margins of error. The indices comprise an aggregate transparency index with two sub-components: economic/institutional transparency, and political transparency. The results emphasize variance. Exemplary transparency is not the exclusive domain of a particular region, and there are transparency-related challenges in countries in each region and income categories. Further, there is significant within-country variation, with large differences in performance between economic/institutional and political dimensions of transparency. Mindful of the challenges in inferring causality, we also find that transparency is associated with better socio-economic and human development indicators, as well as with higher competitiveness and lower corruption. Much progress can be attained without requiring inordinate amount of resources, since transparency reforms can be substantial net 'savers' of public resources, and often can serve as a more efficient and less financially costly substitute to creating additional regulations and/or regulatory or governance bodies. We provide a number of concrete examples of specific transparency-related reforms within a strategic framework, as well as a brief country illustration - the case of Chile.
Technical report: Benefits of Climate Transparency
No full textThis paper aims to highlight the benefits that robust and self-sustained transparency systems can bring to governments, beyond fulfilling current and future reporting requirements under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the Convention) and the Paris Agreement. It also aims to reach climate change policymakers and practitioners from developing country Parties and enhance the reader’s understanding of these benefits,which include
Better information for policy development and decision-making;
Improved access to carbon markets and climate finance;
Increased awareness of and political buy-in for climate action;
Strengthened technical capacities for developing and implementing policies, plans and strategies for low-emission and climate-resilient development, as well as for long-term reporting.
In addition, the paper provides examples from developed and developing country Parties to explain and showcase how increased efforts to allocate human and financial resources for climate transparency can improve political commitment and enhance climate ambition
Improving access to climate financing for the Pacific Islands
No full textExecutive summary
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) commits developed countries to provide assistance to ‘developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change in meeting the costs of adaptation.’
Although recent commitments of ‘fast-start’ climate funding from partners like Australia, Japan and the European Union are welcome, Pacific Island countries face wider obstacles in accessing appropriate and timely levels of funding for adaptation and mitigation to manage the adverse effects that environmental challenges have on core areas for economic, social and human development.
The experience of Solomon Islands, the first Pacific country to obtain funding from the Kyoto Protocol Adaptation Fund for a project on food security and agricultural production, offers some important lessons for the region.
Access to climate financing could be improved through seeking special access for small island states in financial mechanisms, establishing programs and structures that improve donor coordination and build the capacity of national institutions, developing national climate trust funds and a Pacific Regional Climate Change fund and, most importantly, implementing more targeted action on the ground to assist the most vulnerable communities with concrete adaptation programs
Transparency, trade costs, and regional integration in the Asia Pacific
No full textThe authors show in this paper that increasing the transparency of the trading environment can be an important complement to traditional liberalization of tariff and non-tariff barriers. Our definition of transparency is grounded in a transaction cost analysis. The authors focus on two dimensions of transparency: predictability (reducing the cost of uncertainty) and simplification (reducing information costs). Using the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) member economies as a case study, the authors construct indices of importer and exporter transparency for the region from a wide range of sources. Our results from a gravity model suggest that improving trade-related transparency in APEC could hold significant benefits by raising intra-APEC trade by proximately USD 148 billion or 7.5 pecent of baseline trade in the region.Economic Theory&Research,Free Trade,Emerging Markets,Debt Markets,Trade Policy
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: transparency and integrated assessment modeling
No full textIntegrated assessment models (IAMs) connect trends in future socioeconomic and technological development with impacts on the environment, such as global climate change. They occupy a critical position at the global science-policy interface. IAMs and associated scenarios have come under intense scrutiny, with critiques addressing both methodological and substantive issues, such as land use, carbon dioxide removal and technology performance. Criticisms have also addressed the transparency of IAM methods and assumptions as well as the transparency of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment of IAMs. This paper, authored by the co-chairs of IPCC Working Group III and members of the Technical Support Unit, documents activities aiming to enhance the transparency of IAMs and their assessment. It includes a history of IPCC's approach to scenarios covering the formation of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) in 2007 and the emergence of the approach by which IPCC facilitates the development of scenarios, but does not produce them itself. An IPCC Expert Meeting at the start of the current assessment cycle made transparency recommendations targeted at both the research community and IPCC. The community has taken steps to “open the black box” by moving toward open-source and web-publishing IAM documentation. IPCC has included an Annex to its next report focusing on scenarios and modeling methodologies. An open call for scenario data linked to the current IPCC report includes an expanded set of input and output variables. This paper ends with suggested criteria for measuring the success of these efforts to improve transparency
Mapping report of stakeholders for the agricultural sector (Initiative for Climate Action Transparency – ICAT): deliverable 1.1.1.
No full textThe Report provides a structured analysis of key institutions and actors involved in climate mitigation and transparency processes within the Dominican Republic’s agricultural sector. Developed under the ICAT framework, the report examines stakeholder roles, influence, capacities, and interrelationships, highlighting opportunities to enhance coordination and data-sharing mechanisms. By identifying institutional strengths and gaps, the document supports the development of more coherent governance arrangements and facilitates stakeholder engagement in the implementation of climate policies and reporting systems aligned with international transparency standards
How do climate risks affect corporations and how could they address these risks?
No full textPublisher Copyright: © 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.Physical and transitional risks resulting from climate change are already inducing significant direct and indirect impacts on organizations—such as damages to assets, disruption to supply chains, or shifts in supply and demand for certain commodities, products or services. The current short-termism of most companies suggests the importance of raising awareness among the private sector about the potential risks of climate change. However, companies increasingly are reporting and disclosing climate risks and associated costs as asked for benchmarking by financial institutions and to comply with regulations with respect to sustainable finance. A guidance on how to do a climate risk assessment and to estimate the costs of physical climate risk as well as transitional and systemic risk concerning their operations and value chain management is lacking. This paper presents a stepwise blueprint on climate risk assessment and financial disclosures that support companies on reorienting capital flows towards more sustainable investments and with their disclosure process to foster transparency and long-termism in financial and economic activity in line with the action plan on sustainable finance adopted by the European Commission in March 2018 to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth.European Community EIT Climate-KIC and the companies we have worked with in workshops to develop the research.Peer reviewe
Leveraging Transparency, Participation, and Accountability for Effective Climate Action
No full textThe world needs more urgent and
ambitious action to address climate change. Seventy-one
countries have pledged to reach net-zero emissions by
midcentury. Nevertheless, achieving decarbonization and
adapting to climate change will require fundamental changes
in the production of goods and services by firms and the
consumption patterns and behavior of citizens. Climate
change poses difficult challenges for policy makers, and
three particular challenges make the open government
principles of transparency, participation, and
accountability especially important. First, countries often
face the political challenge of credibly committing to
climate action over the long term, in that they must commit
to action over multiple electoral cycles if the private
sector, households, communities, and public entities are to
adopt new technologies and change behavior. Second, climate
change requires coordination between government and
nongovernment actors, as there will be winners and losers
along the way and governments will need to work toward
consensus to balance the outcomes. Third, governments have
to translate promises into climate action. The principles of
open government can be especially useful in tackling all
three challenges by harnessing and ensuring citizen trust in
government and in the legitimacy of climate-directed policy
decisions. This note will show how the use of open
government principles and mechanisms can make a notable
contribution to climate change action. It provides examples
of such measures as well as an inventory of existing good
practices and tools, which can serve as a source of
inspiration for policy makers and citizens alike
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