The Paris Agreement sets the overall goal of limiting the increase in the global average temperature to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels, ensuring a sustainable, clean and fair future, in balance with the environment and the principles of climate justice.

To achieve this collective commitment, a transparent system for communicating, monitoring and verifying climate action is essential.

Climate transparency makes it possible to assess the progress of the Parties in a clear, reliable and comparable way, and is an essential pillar for building trust, strengthening ambition and mutual accountability in the context of global climate governance.

What is climate transparency? And what are the mechanisms and forms of reporting for transparency?

Climate Transparency: according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), climate transparency refers to the communication and review of relevant information on climate change.

It includes data on:

• greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals,
• policies and measures adopted, progress towards the targets set in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs),
• impacts and adaptation measures,
• and financial support and capacity building needs.

This process makes it possible to assess the collective effort, identify gaps and strengthen trust between the Parties to the Paris Agreement. When information is public, reliable and regular, countries tend to be more committed to fulfilling their commitments.

Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF): created by the Paris Agreement, the ETF establishes uniform guidelines for all countries to communicate their climate actions in a transparent and comparable way. It applies from 2024 and replaces the previous Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system.
Its main objectives are:

• strengthen the clarity, consistency and comparability of data,
• to support the implementation of the NDCs,
• and to enable a continuous global assessment of collective progress.

Biennial Transparency Report (BTR): the main reporting instrument under the ETF, the BTR is submitted every two years by the Parties.

It contains detailed information on:

• GHG emissions and removals,
• mitigation measures
• adaptation to climate change
• financial support received and/or provided, and
• progress in implementing the NDCs.

The BTR is essential to ensure regular monitoring of climate commitments and is subject to a technical review and peer consultation process.

Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC): represents each country’s commitments under the Paris Agreement. They include mitigation targets, adaptation strategies and, in some cases, components related to financing, capacity building and technology transfer.

The NDCs must be:

• clear and transparent,
• accompanied by substantiated information, and
• periodically reviewed and updated with a view to increasing ambition.

Progress in implementing the NDCs is reported in the BTR, which is a key part of the transparency system.

Ambition: ambition in the context of NDCs refers to the level of commitment of each country to increase its mitigation and adaptation targets over time. Each new NDC should be more ambitious than the previous one, reflecting the ongoing effort to combat climate change, according to the country’s capacity.

Author

Loriana Monteiro, Climate Action Now Program