Vanuatu’s Progress to Mitigate Climate Change

April 15, 2019

At the launch of the Vanuatu NDC Roadmap in Port Vila. (L-R) Srikanth Subbarao, Subbarao Consulting; Jesse Benjamin, Director General, Ministry of Climate Change & Disaster; Alexandra Soezer, UNDP; and Manfred Stockmayer, Energy Changes. (Photo: UNDP)


Port Vila, Vanuatu
 - The Ministry of Climate Change and Natural Disaster (MCCND) has launched Vanuatu’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Implementation Roadmap and Vanuatu’s Integrated, Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) Tool.

The Vanuatu parliament ratified the Paris Climate Change Agreement on 18 June 2016 and submitted the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) and emission reduction targets to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Vanuatu’s NDC mitigation target is transitioning close to 100 percent renewable energy in the electricity (energy) sector by 2030.

The NDC Implementation Roadmap aims at providing a pathway for the implementation of specific climate change mitigation actions in Vanuatu, which can assist in achieving the target defined in Vanuatu’s NDC.

The MCCND also launched Vanuatu’s Integrated MRV Tool for Climate Action Tracking.

Director General Mr. Jesse Benjamin said, “The launch of the NDC Implementation Roadmap and the Integrated MRV Tool is the outcome of the collaboration and mutual partnership with key stakeholders in the energy sector, private sector, NGOs, civil society organisations and development partners.”

The NDC Implementation Roadmap is aligned with the National Energy Roadmap and the overarching government 2030 policy on National Sustainable Development Plan.

“The NDC Implementation Roadmap clearly articulates how to achieve the commitments of 100 percent renewable energy in Vanuatu by 2030’. Finally, the Ministry of Climate Change acknowledges the support from UNDP as a trusted development partner in the climate change sector in Vanuatu,” Mr Benjamin added.

The integrated MRV Tool is envisaged to enhance Vanuatu’s ability to achieve its mitigation NDC target through an MRV database and tool for quantification, monitoring verification and reporting of GHG emission reductions in the energy sector.

The integrated MRV Tool, which was launched on Thursday 11 April 2019, also enables Vanuatu to track the climate finance flow towards achieving the NDC goals along with Sustainable Development Goals and benefits.

Ms Alexandra Soezer, Climate Change Technical Advisor, UNDP NDC Support Programme said, “When talking about low carbon development, there is certainly recognition that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on climate change are profoundly interconnected but it’s evident that a full integration of both agendas has not happened in most countries yet.”

“Vanuatu, in a first of its kind initiative, has moved towards effectively tracking progress on the NDCs and SDGs in an integrated manner through its integrated MRV Tool,” she said.

A recent webinar provided an overview of the integrated MRV Tool and a detailed presentation of the top-down and bottom-up MRV features of the tool.

The roadmap and the integrated MRV tool were developed under the technical assistance and funding support from UNDP’s NDC Support Programme.

For more information, contact:

Jesse Benjamin, Director General, Ministry of Climate Change and Natural Disasters; Email: jbenjamin@vanuatu.gov.vu

Leana William, NDC Coordinator, Ministry of Climate Change and Natural Disasters; Email: lwilliam@vanuatu.gov.vu