UNFCC: Enhancing National Capabilities to Respond to Climate Change

The 12th professional training programme on greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories, conducted this year in-person, took place from 25 July to 12 August in Seoul, South Korea. Lessons learned from the session will enhance national capability in responding to climate change.

The intensive training course is for national specialists from developing countries and is structured to address current knowledge gaps. It is offered in collaboration by the UNFCCC secretariat and the Greenhouse Gas Inventory & Research Center of Korea (GIR), with support from the Partnership on Transparency in the Paris Agreement (CASTT).

GHG inventories are a key source of information necessary to understand where each country, and the global community at large, stand in terms of GHG emissions. Through a tailored and focused approach, the programme aims to significantly boost the technical capacity of developing countries.

This year’s programme gave the opportunity for the top performers from the classes of 2020 and 2021 who completed their courses online due to COVID-19, to participate along with the 2022 selected trainees. In total, 25 trainees completed the course, of which 60% were from the Asia-Pacific region, 24% from Latin America and the Caribbean, and 16% from Africa.

The trainees were appreciative of the quality of the training programme, with sessions focusing on different sectors. Though not all trainees were experts in every sector such as energy, waste, Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU), and Industrial Processes and Product Use (IPPU), all were engaged at the sessions and had an opportunity to gain a broader understanding of different sectors.

With developing countries facing similar technical and financial challenges in preparing their national inventory reports, the trainees also had the opportunity to exchange experiences and lessons learned.

All participants were of the view that the training course enhanced their understanding of very technical matters and helped them develop the skill sets that can be applied in developing GHG inventories back in their home countries.