Assessing the first Biennial Transparency Reports submitted to the UNFCCC: Are they effectively promoting transparency?
As of 27 February 2025, 105 Parties had submitted their first biennial transparency reports (BTRs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) under the Paris Agreement – 78 when counting the European Union as a single Party. Ninety submissions, all from Non-Annex I Parties, were still pending. This paper develops a screening and scoring framework to assess transparency in this first set of BTRs, focusing on two dimensions: Data and Governance.
While Data reporting is generally accurate in these reports, this review identifies several areas of improvement for the next rounds of BTRs, including: improving the quality of input data (activity data and emission factors); switching progressively to more sophisticated methods for uncertainty assessment and to higher-tier methodologies for estimating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions; enhancing the consistency and completeness of GHG inventories in terms of time series, categories of sources or sinks, and gases covered; and reducing the need for application of flexibility provisions in developing country Parties.
Information on Governance is much more difficult to pull out of the BTRs than information on Data. Transparency, consistency and comparability in Governance reporting can be strengthened through: 1) standardized structured questionnaires or detailed checklists; 2) better integration in the BTRs of all considerations regarding national circumstances, institutional arrangements and stakeholder involvement; and 3) increased recognition of non-state actors’ role in climate policies and actions.
All these additional efforts will certainly require further international cooperation, financial support, knowledge and technology transfer and capacity building to enhance reporting capacities in developing country Parties.
Download :
This works is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors
Pingault, N.,Martius, C.
Publication year
2025
