Mitigation Experts for Climate Change Third National Communication Project - Forestry

Studies show that climate change impacts in Sudan are projected to adversely affect several economic, social and services sectors and, as a consequence, growth in terms of gross domestic product as well as development will be affected negatively,

Sudan ratified the convention and its Kyoto protocol and is committed to meeting its obligations towards the international community .This has been demonstrated by the fact the country has already prepared and submitted initial and second national communications and is undertaking serious climate actions in both adaptation and mitigation areas. The Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources (HCENR) is leading the coordination of the climate change process in Sudan, which involved wide range of national institutions as well as state level institutions. The climate Change unit within HCENR, coordinates among all related institutions and has number of teams of national experts on GHGs inventory, mitigation, and vulnerability and adaptation assessment. In preparation for this project these teams of experts conducted stock-taking exercise based on the second national communication process to identify gaps and areas for improvement and to compile lessons to build on for preparing the third national communication. Based on the outcome of the stocktaking exercise and the new reporting requirements, this project will aim to strengthen Sudan’s national capacity to prepare the TNC/BUR and meets the new obligations for regular preparation of National Communications and biennial update reports as well as participation in the international consultation and analysis.

Sudan also signed and ratified Paris Agreement so  committed to implementing it in line with the principles and provisions of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, ensuring parity in the content and legality of mitigation and adaptation activities, and their means of implementation .The implementation of the Paris Agreement shall be in accordance with the principles and provisions of the Convention, in particular the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities and equity .The implementation of the Paris Agreement shall enhance the implementation of the Convention and its Annexes, be consistent with science and equity, and further enhance the multilateral rules-based regime in a balanced and ambitious manner;

Mitigation Assessment:

Sudan as a developing country is not required to take on emission reduction commitments or target. However under Article 4.1 all Parties taking into account their common but differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional development priorities, objectives and circumstances, are committed to implement programmes and measures to mitigate climate change, apply environmentally sound technologies, practices and processes that control, reduce or prevent anthropogenic emissions of GHGs, and promote sustainable management, and promote and cooperate in the conservation and enhancement, as appropriate, of sinks and reservoirs of all greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal Protocol, including biomass, forests and oceans as well as other terrestrial, coastal and marine ecosystems.

Therefore, Sudan is motivated to undertake climate change mitigation measures to contribute to the global efforts within the framework of sustainable development objectives, which should include social, economic and environmental factors.  Mitigation assessment should entail the generation of information on the national (or regional) analysis of the potential costs and impacts of the various technologies and practices to mitigate climate change. This information will be relevant for sustainable development and useful for policymakers, aiming to help formulation and prioritization of mitigation programmes and measures, taking into account national circumstances and development priorities. Where appropriate, its description will cover how and by whom the mitigation assessment has been undertaken, and which sectors and gases were covered. Relevant and appropriate methods and models will be used in mitigation assessment, based on the guidelines.

Reporting in the TNC will include information on programmes and measures implemented or planned which contribute to mitigating climate change by addressing anthropogenic GHG emissions and removals, including, as appropriate, relevant information by key sectors on methodologies, scenarios, results, measures and institutional arrangements. Information on any mitigation projects that are being implemented or proposed could include information on funding resources needed as well as sources of the funds such as national government, and multilateral and bilateral programmes. Additionally, for the purpose of the Sudan first BUR the reporting will cover the information described in decision 2/CP.17, annex III, paragraphs 11–13.

• Review and stock taking of all national policies, programmes and measures relevant to climate change and GHGs mitigation will be conducted;
• Assessment focused on priority sectors including energy, forestry and waste will be conducted to identify priority mitigation measures, technologies and projects within the context of sustainable development;
• Business as usual (baseline) and mitigation scenarios for these priority sectors will be developed, resources premitting. Approriate methods and tools will be identified, used and documented;
• Financial, technical, tehnological and capacity needs support for mitigation undertakings will identified;
• National experts from all relevant institutions, including private sectors, in addition to international expertise (as needed) will be involved;

Review of the existing arrangements relevant to MRV of the mitigation actions will be conducted with the view of enhancing such arrangements for participation in the international consultation and analysis.

The main outputs of the undertaken activities are:

•   Understanding of the context for mitigation assessment: economic, social and political circumstances.  Provides a basis for scoping the work and establishing appropriate detail required for assessment.
•   Enhancement in national energy planning process encountering GHG mitigation options.
•   Analysis of the strengths & weaknesses of past mitigation work helps ensure that future NCs are more relevant.
•   Having focused discussions with key stakeholders beforehand lead to focus on identifying most relevant potential mitigation options.

The project Objectives

The main objective of this project is to implement an enabling process involving all relevant national stakeholders to strengthen technical and institutional capacities and prepare and submit Sudan’s TNC and first BUR to the UNFCCC in accordance with agreed guidelines. The outcomes of this project are mainly based on the reporting requirements in the guidelines for both Non-Annex I national communications and the BURs.

Key Achievements in relation to mitigation assessment Includes:

• Formulating Mitigation Technical Team from relevant institutions.
• Appointment of three National consultants for the mitigation assessment for the energy, forestry and waste sectors respectively.
• Preparing a scoping paper for the mitigation assessment for the energy, waste and forestry sectors.

Objective and Scope of Consultancy

Objective: The purpose of the assignment is to provide capacity building by training in mitigation assessment of forestry sector so that Sudan can conduct an assessment and come out with mitigation options as part of his commitment on its national communication and also as to integrate these options in the national planning

Scope of Work

The consultant will be responsible to provide intensive training for 5 days in the following areas 

• Design and Selection of methodologies consistent with study objectives, desired outputs, available data and resources:
• Economic outputs: cost and benefits (bottom-up approaches), macroeconomic impacts (top-down models)
• Integrated and/or sector-specific analysis (Forestry sector)
• Carbon abatement for the selected mitigation options.
• Approaches to cost/economic analysis
• Mitigation (Abatement) cost analysis:
• Macroeconomic analysis:
• Development of baseline scenarios.
• Mitigation options Identification and screening.
• Establishment of Screening Criteria.
• Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA).
• Cost-Effectiveness and Marginal Abatement Cost (MAC).
• Developing, Constructing, framing and assessing Mitigation Scenarios.

• Corporate Competencies
• Demonstrates integrity by modeling the UN’s values and ethical standards;
• Promotes the vision, mission, and strategic goals of UNDP;
• Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability;
• Treats all people fairly without favoritism;
• Ability to work with a multi-cultural and diverse team.
• Functional Competencies:
• Demonstrated experience in technical issues related to climate change mitigation
• Demonstrated ability to analyze large amounts of complex and diversified data related to climate change mitigation in least developed countries.
• Demonstrated strong coordination and facilitation skills;
• Proved strong interpersonal skills and the ability to conduct the mitigation training

Minimum Level of Education Required:

• Master’s Degree or equivalent in Climate change, environmental economics or any related field.

Work Experience and Expertise:

• Minimum of 10 years of international experience in environment /climate change sector focused on mitigation assessment, development of mitigation option and their cost ,cost benefit analysis
• Well Acquainted with IPCC Assessments specially Mitigation Reports.
• Experience in the use of mitigation models and software.
• Knowledge of Climate change international System and its institutions.
• Excellent written communication skills, with analytic capacity and ability to synthesize relevant collected data and findings for the preparation of quality knowledge pieces
• Experience in conductingsimilartraining activities before
• Published papers and or teaching experience in climate change is an advantage
• Experience of working or understanding of the context in Sudan would be an asset.