The missing ingredients for successful NAMAs

The document examines Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) as tools for developing countries to achieve mitigation and sustainable development goals. It highlights a significant gap between the high interest in NAMA development and the actual financial support provided, noting that less than 2% of requested support has been offered. The brief argues that the lack of official UNFCCC guidelines for stakeholder consultation and the absence of sector-specific environmental criteria—such as 'negative lists' to exclude harmful technologies—risk promoting 'greenwashing' and locking countries into high-carbon infrastructure. It recommends adopting universal safeguards, harmonized sustainable development assessments, and mandatory guidelines for effective stakeholder engagement, including indigenous peoples, to ensure NAMAs drive true transformational change.

• NAMAs are designed as voluntary, country-driven instruments for developing countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions below business-as-usual levels by 2020 while contributing to domestic sustainable development, moving away from the carbon trading model of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
• There is a severe shortfall in funding for NAMAs; as of November 2015, only approximately $136.57 million was offered out of $7.8 billion in requested support, representing less than 2% of the total request.
• NAMAs can support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs) and Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), with some countries, such as Thailand and the Dominican Republic, using NAMA-developed capacities to inform their INDCs.
• The absence of official UNFCCC rules or guidelines for stakeholder consultation often leads to poorly designed processes that exclude civil society, although successful examples in Georgia and Mexico show that inclusive engagement enhances local ownership and sustainability.
• A lack of sector-specific environmental criteria and 'negative lists' allows for the promotion of harmful practices under the guise of climate action, such as waste incineration in the cement sectors of the Dominican Republic and Indonesia, or the use of NERICA rice monocultures in Uganda.
• While NAMAs utilize Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (MRV) systems, there are no universal guidelines for supported NAMAs, and the UNFCCC does not provide criteria or safeguards to monitor and assess sustainable development co-benefits.

APA

Trunk, U. (2015). The missing ingredients for successful NAMAs. Carbon Market Watch. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/NC-THE-MISSING-INGREDIENTS-TO-THE-NAMAS-SUCCESS-WEB.pdf

Chicago

Trunk, Urska. The missing ingredients for successful NAMAs. Carbon Market Watch, 2015. https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/NC-THE-MISSING-INGREDIENTS-TO-THE-NAMAS-SUCCESS-WEB.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Trunk |first1=Urska |title=The missing ingredients for successful NAMAs |publisher=Carbon Market Watch |date=December 2015 |url=https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/NC-THE-MISSING-INGREDIENTS-TO-THE-NAMAS-SUCCESS-WEB.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{trunk2015missing, author = {Trunk, Urska}, title = {{The missing ingredients for successful NAMAs}}, institution = {Carbon Market Watch}, year = {2015}, month = dec, url = {https://carbonmarketwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/NC-THE-MISSING-INGREDIENTS-TO-THE-NAMAS-SUCCESS-WEB.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }