BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 18. Japan will cooperate with Azerbaijan in preparing biennial transparency reports (BTR) for developing countries and improve their quality, Japanese Environment Minister Keiichiro Asao said during the COP29 ministerial roundtable on global climate transparency, Trend reports.
"In particular, we'll focus on three main areas to promote the improvement of global transparency.
The first is the timely submission of the national BTR (Biennial Transparency Report) as a good example. Japan submitted its BTR to the UNFCCC Secretariat last month, at the request of Azerbaijan, becoming the first developed country to do so.
Japan's BTR is a full-format document that contains detailed information on greenhouse gas inventories, progress on mitigation and adaptation measures, as well as specific allocation of funds and support. Therefore, it can serve as a model for all countries.
Furthermore, in the process of creating its BTR, Japan used the follow-up mechanism within its Mitigation Action Plan, which operates under the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle, involving all government agencies. We'll share the experience of preparing quality BTR reports worldwide, including both content and preparation processes," he stated.
According to him, the second contribution is the development of BTR preparation capacity in developing countries.
"For many years, Japan has contributed to improving the quality of inventories in various countries through the Greenhouse Gas Inventory Working Group in Asia. Here, we also provide detailed, hands-on training based on the needs of each country in collaboration with Japanese experts from the National Institute for Environmental Studies.
The third contribution is supporting the improvement of transparency quality through satellite technologies. Japan operates a series of greenhouse gas observing satellites (GOSAT), which monitor carbon dioxide and methane concentrations on a global scale.
Moreover, we are developing methods for verifying greenhouse gas emissions at the national and regional levels using data from these observations. We are already supporting verification using GOSAT data for greenhouse gas inventories in Mongolia and India," he added.
To note, the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29), which will run until November 22, opened at the Baku Olympic Stadium on November 11. It is the largest event organized by Azerbaijan to date, and the first time in the region that it is being held in Azerbaijan.
Within COP29, the highest level event - the summit of world leaders on climate action - was held on November 12–13.
The main expectation from COP29 is to agree on a fair and ambitious New Collective Quantitative Goal (NCQG) on climate finance. The COP29 chairmanship has launched 14 initiatives that include linkages between climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals, including green energy corridors, green energy storage, harmony for climate resilience, clean hydrogen, methane reduction in organic waste, action on green digital technologies, and other topics.
In addition to being a top priority that creates the conditions for action, creating climate finance will also help fulfill the 1.5°C pledge by bringing everyone together.
The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is an agreement signed at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992 to prevent dangerous human interference in the climate system. The acronym COP (Conference of Parties) stands for “Conference of Parties” and is the highest legislative body overseeing the implementation of the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
A total of 198 countries are parties to the Convention. Unless otherwise decided by the parties, COP is held annually. The first COP event was held in March 1995 in Berlin, and its secretariat is located in Bonn.
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