Development and Management of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in India

Project description

Title: Development and Management of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in India
Commissioned by: Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (BMU)
Country: India
Lead executing agency: Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India
Overall term: 2013 to 2020

Context

The Government of India recognises the relevance of climate change and in recent years, climate policy has gained increasing attention in the country. In 2008, the National Action Plan on Climate Change was launched to guide the Indian state governments in development of State Action Plans on Climate Change. At the international level, growing attention has focussed on a promising instrument called the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) to reduce Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, and to simultaneously foster sustainable development in emerging markets and developing countries.

The concept of NAMAs was developed during the negotiations carried out under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). NAMAs will be critical vehicles to implement climate change mitigation actions and targets of the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC), which were submitted by India as part of its ratification of the historic Paris Agreement.

In the Indian context, NAMAs offer a promising opportunity to support the government of India in linking socially and ecologically acceptable economic growth with GHG mitigation. They are driven by the conviction that appropriate policies and activities can mobilise public and private investment in low-carbon development. Furthermore, NAMAs are used to access international financial support (e.g. from the Green Climate Fund, NAMA Facility) and technical assistance, capacity building or technology transfer. Hence the so-called unilateral NAMAs will become internationally supported NAMAs, which may increase a country’s mitigation ambition and decrease future GHG emissions.

Objective

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is successfully promoting the use of NAMAs as one of the mechanisms to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in India.

Approach

The project provides technical support to the MoEFCC to develop the first NAMAs in the sectors of waste and forestry. The project applies a participatory approach, bringing together various stakeholders from the public and private sectors. This multi-stakeholder approach builds the necessary broad support for proper and successful subsequent implementation of NAMAs.

The project comprises the following activities:

  • Developing a National Climate Change Mitigation Action Manual including a definition and a framework for the development and management of NAMAs in India.
  • Developing fully fledged and bankable NAMA concepts for the waste and forestry sectors, including Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) systems.
  • Preparing outlines for NAMA Support Projects (NSP) under the fourth and the fifth call of the NAMA Facility in October 2016 and March 2018 respectively.
  • Assessing the role of private finance institutions in scaling up climate finance in India, as well as developing innovative financing solutions to access international support for the implementation of NAMAs.
  • Capacity building for public and private sector actors, such as specific trainings on NAMAs and the MRV.

Results

  • Feasibility reports have been successfully completed and vetted by all relevant national and sub-national stakeholders for development of NAMAs in the waste and forestry sectors.
  • Two fully fledged, feasible, bankable and MRV-able NAMA concepts (one each for the waste and forestry sectors) have been developed. Implementation of these will achieve significant GHG mitigation without hampering India’s development targets and contributing to its NDC targets.
  • The Decision Support System component of the Forest NAMA concept was a winning proposal at the MIT Climate CoLab 2017-18 contest.
  • A National Climate Change Mitigation Action Manual has been developed. This framework/manual is available for building capacities of different stakeholders.
  • Furthermore, the implementation of two NAMAs will strengthen capacities at the MoEFCC, state and city governments and other stakeholders, aiding them in developing NAMAs and mitigation strategies in other sectors, as well as measuring their impact.

Additional information