Enhancing the transparency and accountability of climate reporting under the Paris Agreement

The document examines the operationalisation of the Paris Agreement's Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF), which mandates that all countries submit biennial transparency reports by December 31, 2024. It highlights the shift toward standardised reporting and review processes to increase accountability for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). While the ETF aims to build trust and facilitate ambitious climate commitments, the author notes that developing countries face significant barriers in technical capacity, particularly in greenhouse gas accounting and measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV). The brief advocates for integrating climate tracking into national budgets, enhancing stakeholder engagement, and increasing capacity building for adaptation and loss and damage reporting, particularly in Africa.

• The Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) requires all countries to submit biennial transparency reports by December 31, 2024, replacing previous reporting mechanisms for both developed and developing countries.
• The ETF employs a two-stage review process: an independent Technical Expert Review to assess adherence to reporting requirements, followed by a public-review process called the Facilitative Multilateral Consideration of Progress.
• Developing countries face substantial hurdles in meeting ETF requirements due to a lack of institutional and financial resources, as well as technical gaps in greenhouse gas accounting and measurement, reporting and verification (MRV).
• Integrating 'climate budget tagging' and public expenditure reviews into national processes can help governments identify spending gaps and track climate finance, as demonstrated by Kenya's system which tracked spending increases from $776 million in 2019/2020 to $957 million in 2020/2021.
• Broad stakeholder engagement in the NDC process, such as South Africa's 2021 public review involving nine provinces and various civil society groups, increases accountability and ownership of climate implementation.
• There is a critical need for capacity building in African countries to improve the measurement and reporting of adaptation and loss and damage, as current frameworks are more robust for mitigation than for adaptation.

APA

South African Institute of International Affairs (2022). Enhancing the transparency and accountability of climate reporting under the Paris Agreement. https://saiia.org.za/research/enhancing-the-transparency-and-accountability-of-climate-reporting-under-the-paris-agreement/

Chicago

South African Institute of International Affairs. Enhancing the transparency and accountability of climate reporting under the Paris Agreement. 2022. https://saiia.org.za/research/enhancing-the-transparency-and-accountability-of-climate-reporting-under-the-paris-agreement/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=South African Institute of International Affairs |title=Enhancing the transparency and accountability of climate reporting under the Paris Agreement |date=29 June 2022 |url=https://saiia.org.za/research/enhancing-the-transparency-and-accountability-of-climate-reporting-under-the-paris-agreement/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{southafricaninstituteofinternationalaffairs2022enhancing, author = {{South African Institute of International Affairs}}, title = {{Enhancing the transparency and accountability of climate reporting under the Paris Agreement}}, institution = {South African Institute of International Affairs}, year = {2022}, month = jun, url = {https://saiia.org.za/research/enhancing-the-transparency-and-accountability-of-climate-reporting-under-the-paris-agreement/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }