Climate change has emerged as one of the main threats humanity faces with food and water scarcity, increased flooding, extreme heat, more disease and economic loss. The six EU Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) face water and energy shortages and a broad spectrum of climate-related and geophysical problems. Funded by the European Union (EU) and implemented by UNDP, EU4Climate helps governments in the EaP countries to take action against climate change and towards a low-emissions and climate-resilient economy.
EU4Climate works in several directions: implementation and update of nationally determined contributions (NDC); development of national mid-century low-emission development strategies (LEDS); introducing or strengthening of robust emissions measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) frameworks; alignment with the EU Acquis; mainstreaming climate in other sectors, interinstitutional awareness and sectoral guidelines for implementing the Paris Agreement (PA); climate investment; adaptation planning.
In its journey, EU4Climate is not alone but assisted with the cooperation, support and co-financing of UNDP projects dealing with the various aspects of climate change. Cooperation is crucial to the success of addressing climate change which is why different UNDP projects contribute by co-financing the work of the EU4Climate through reports, capacity building and recommendations for policies in EaP countries.
NDC, MRV and adaptation-related activities are the main fields of support received from other UNDP projects. While NDC-related support comes to ensure NDC implementation and public awareness of NDC in Armenia, Belarus and Ukraine, MRV-linked assistance specifically for Armenia, Georgia and Belarus helped to have in place review/gap analysis of existing MRV (GHG inventory) systems, proposals for national MRV in line with the UNFCCC transparency requirements and EU experience.
Adaptation-directed activities are safeguarded with co-financed support in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine through the co-financing of the national adaptation planning, and knowledge exchange on NAP development as well as reporting to UNFCCC.
Cooperation through co-financing in Belarus and Georgia is linked to the mid-century, long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies as a tool to establish sectoral GHG emission targets. Ukraine succeeded in getting co-financing for mainstreaming climate in policy sectors through recommendations.
Cooperation in Armenia with co-financing contribution of UNDP projects is related to Armenia’s Third Biennial Update Report to the UNFCCC, NAP, development of Armenia’s Fourth National Communication to the UNFCCC and Second Biennial Report. A significant result of the co-financing engagement of UNDP projects with the EU4Climate is the report on the current status of the MRV framework in the country, including an assessment of the progress made since the publication of BUR2 (draft MRV chapter of BUR3) as well as recommendations on creating a sound MRV system.
The report on the development of Climate change vulnerability İndex in Azerbaijan is the main achievement of co-financed cooperation with the UNDP projects together with the workshops involving local and central authorities in discussion on the adaptation planning process. This is complemented by a series of reports on vulnerability and adaptation issues regarding water resources, vulnerable regions, agriculture, etc for Azerbaijan.
The research and analysis papers on MRV methodology for street lighting, restoration of degraded peatlands, afforestation and reforestation, the establishment of the Emission Trading System come to complete the outstanding work related to the preparation of the Seventh National Communication for the Implementation of the UNFCCC the third Biennial report in Belarus. Recommendations and conclusions based on the last document were used to help increase the resilience to the impacts of climate change reflected in the second NDC prepared within EU4Climate and to the development of LEDS in Belarus. Another achievement of collaboration between the EU4Climate and UNDP projects in the field are reports about climate change mitigation scenarios, costs, benefits and impacts for Belarus in the energy, transport, LULUCF, IPPU, waste, agriculture sectors. The model 2050 accumulates mitigation scenarios, benefits and impacts for Belarus produced for key economic sectors.
Strong awareness-raising emphasis is present in the realization of EU4Climate-UNDP projects’ co-financed cooperation in Georgia. Support in the development of the Climate Finance MRV is leading the list of cooperation results such as awareness-raising brochures, promo videos to disseminate main ideas about the vulnerability and adaptation to the diverse impacts of climate change.
Supporting national adaptation planning in Moldova resulted in several reports including the development of the draft National Climate Change Adaptation Program (NCCAP) until 2030 and its Action Plan. Reports that referred to sectoral vulnerability assessment and adaptation options, institutional and capacity assessment and development of the capacity plan, stakeholder mapping in the forestry, energy, health, transport, water sectors are mutually important achievements with documents about the expected impacts of climate change on forestry, sectoral risks and vulnerabilities, adaptation technology options. The special focus of co-financed work was also the report on the development of the Climate Budget Tagging Framework and Roadmap for its implementation for Moldova and work related to the development of Draft Participatory and Gender-inclusive Climate Change Adaptation/Resilience Roadmaps for seven towns.
Co-financing with the EU4Climate in Ukraine led to the first Ukraine-Kazakhstan Climate Dialogue aiming to raise awareness of NDC implementation, particularly decarbonization policies in Ukraine. NDC Media brunch also was provided under this co-financing opportunity to raise knowledge of media on the next steps following the updated NDC approval. Reports on emissions from the transport sector as well as emission estimation for 2030 and 2050 were covered alongside the draft Methodology for measuring emission rates from road and off-road transport in accordance with European requirements. Support in developing and implementing a communication plan for updated NDC is a significant achievement of cooperation with the UNDP projects in Ukraine.
The list of all projects available here.