IDB Commends Jamaica on Climate Change Activities

The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has commended Jamaica on its work to advance activities relating to its climate change agenda.

“Jamaica is in a position of leadership. You are way ahead of a lot of countries in this realm,” said Chief of Operations, IDB Jamaica, Adriana La Valley, who was speaking at a Capacity-building Initiative for Transparency (CBIT) workshop, held at the Terra Nova All-Suites Hotel, in St. Andrew, on Tuesday (January 29).

However, she called for greater collaboration in information sharing amongst climate change stakeholders.

“If we had all the data consolidated and communicated, we would be further ahead,” she said.

In the meantime, Principal Director, Climate Change Division, Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, UnaMay Gordon, said the climate change agenda in Jamaica “is almost the most active across the Caribbean.”

She noted, however, that the country still has work to do “in terms of the measurement and the verification and the reporting requirements, notwithstanding the reports that we have submitted (under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change).”

Under the Paris Agreement, to which Jamaica became a party in May 2017, the country is obligated to meet the enhanced transparency requirements as set out in the agreement.

Ms. Gordon informed that Jamaica was the first among countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and Small Island Developing States (SIDS) to have submitted its biennial update report to the Secretariat.

She also noted that the country’s third national communication was submitted to the Secretariat at the end of 2018.

“These submissions indicate the strong level of country commitment to establish these long term relationships to ensure an accurate and reliable transparency framework (on climate change),” she said.

The workshop was held as part of the country’s CBIT project which was created at the request of parties to the Paris Agreement, to help strengthen the institutional and technical capacities of countries to meet the enhanced transparency requirements defined in Article 13 of the agreement.

Discussions focused on the three main components of Jamaica’s CBIT project – strengthening the transparency framework; improving Jamaica’s technical capacity to establish a robust domestic Measuring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system; and improving knowledge-sharing and capacity-building for effective coordination among national agencies in the implementation of transparency-related activities.

The project is funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), through its implementing partner, the IDB.