The overall commitments of the climate change Convention clearly recognized the need and importance for developing countries to pursue sustainable development paths. According to Cancun agreement (2011) ?developing country Parties will take nationally appropriate mitigation actions in the context of sustainable development, supported and enabled by technology, financing and capacity-building, aimed at achieving a deviation in emissions relative to business as usual emissions in 2020?. It also invited developing country Parties to submit to the secretariat information on nationally appropriate mitigation actions for which they are seeking support, along with estimated costs and emission reductions, and the anticipated time frame for implementation. It further encouraged developing countries to develop low-carbon development strategies or plans in the context of sustainable development.
The flexible mechanisms of Kyoto Protocol were mainly included to serve the dual objective of helping developed countries achieve their GHG reduction targets cost-effectively, and to help developing countries to pursue sustainable development. This clearly indicates that the participation of developing countries in global efforts to achieve the objectives of the UNFCCC should be closely linked to national development priorities.
Despite the success of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in mobilizing investment for low carbon development projects, stockholders have raised concerns about the cumbersome and data intensive procedures as well as a lack of consistency within the mechanism. In particular, establishing baselines under the CDM has traditionally been an expensive and time ? consuming exercise. Moreover, stakeholders often complain about inconsistencies within and between methodologies and the lack of objectivity in additionality assessments.
The parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) called for the use of standardized Baselines (SBs) at the Cancun Climate Change conference as one of a suite of potential solutions these challenges. SBs aim to reduce transaction costs and to enhance transparency, objectivity and predictability. As a result, SBs are hoped to facilitate access to the Clean Development Mechanism, particularly with regard to underrepresented project types and regions, and scale up the abatement of greenhouse gas emissions, while ensuring environmental integrity. Under SBs, baseline scenarios and/or baseline emissions (including baseline emission factors) and / or additionality criteria are not determined on a project-by-project level but are established for a project type or sector in one or several CDM host countries. Guidelines and procedures for the establishment of standardized baselines have been developed and adopted by the CDM Executive Board (EB). SBs allow for board applicability ? in CDM Projects as well as build the basis for greenhouse gas emission quantifications and monitoring for NAMAs.
Going forward, the opportunity is for the CDM and carbon finance to move to mitigation actions at scale, and to draw linkages with next generation instruments such a Nationality Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMs) and New Market Mechanisms (NMMs). In this regard, the CDM?s PoA and Standardized Baselines(SBs) can act as an important starting point for sector-wide activities. Developing countries can gain bottom-up, direct experience with PoAs and SBs that can then serve as building blocks in developing the NAMAs and NMMs of the future.
As stipulated in Sudan?s Initial National communication (2003), the overall objective of Sudan's national implementation strategy is to promote sustainable development paths that improve Sudan's adaptive capacity and limit its growth in GHG emissions through integration of climate change issues and concerns into national policies, strategies and development plans.
According to Sudan?s second national communication (2013), the trend in total GHG emissions for 1995, the year of the initial GHG inventory, and 2000, shows that GHG emissions have increased by about 8%; from 72,014 Gg of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) in 1995 to 77,650 Gg CO2e in 2000. The major drivers for these changes in GHG emission levels are:
Emissions from energy increased by roughly 10%. Increased fossil fuel consuming activities in electricity production, transport, and manufacturing are the primary reasons. This increase is partially offset by significant switching from biomass/charcoal use in the household sectors (with its corresponding high CH4 emissions) to greater LPG use. Industrial process emissions decreased by a substantial amount, 46%, although total levels are virtually negligible in both 1995 and 2000 relative to other sectors. The decrease is because one of the main cement factories was not operational during 2000, while another factory underwent renovations in that year. Emissions from agriculture increased by roughly 27%, primarily due to an increase in livestock populations. Land Use Change and Forestry (LUCF) sector is responsible for most of the decrease in GHG emissions since 1995. Emissions have reduced by almost 50% compared to 1995 levels, or almost 12% per year. This is a result of reductions in forest and grassland conversion, coupled with the expansion in afforested areas and managed forested land, in addition to improve application of the inventory methodology (forest characterization). Emissions from waste management more than doubled. The majority of this increase is due to greater amounts of municipal solid waste sent to landfill sites.The mitigation analysis conducting in the course of preparing Sudan?s national communications focuses on the energy and land use sectors (forestry and rangeland and agriculture) with the aim of identifying GHG mitigation options that can both serve national development priorities and contribute to the global mitigation efforts to achieve the overall objective of the climate change Convention. Number of options have been identified and analyzed in terms of both their GHGs reduction potential and economies.
Sudan also established a process to promote CDM and carbon investment opportunities to support low-carbon national development process. Using the support from UNDP, the HCNER (UNFCCC and CDM focal point) implemented a project to promote CDM and REDD+ in Sudan. The project aimed towards establishing a strategy to support carbon investment, strengthening CDM procedures, building capacity within the potential CDM actors in Sudan, assess the potential for CDM in the different sectors and also develop capacity and awareness for the preparedness phase of REDD+ in Sudan.
The National Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Strategy created interest in carbon financed projects and currently a couple of projects are in the pipeline for CDM registration. Further, the development of Sudan Technology Need Assessment (TNA) has just been completed. Within the context, UNDP interventions will focus on activities to create enabling environment and projects that help Sudan to follow green development path and be able to access climate finance.
To be able to achieve the result, the UNDP CO prepared the Project Initiation Plan (PIP) for Promoting Low Carbon development in consultation with the concerned government agencies and various development partners. The aim of the project is to encourage the government of Sudan to move towards low carbon and resilient development and better promote investment in GHG mitigation projects be able to claim carbon revenues and meet its obligation towards contributing to the global mitigation efforts and meet the eligibility requirement of accessing climate financing including through the newly established Green Climate Fund (GCF). The project will cover the development of CDM standardized baselines for priority sectors, develop a framework and capacity for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), capacity development on CDM methodologies and develop a project proposal for preparing a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) for Sudan.
The duration of the Promoting Low Carbon Development project is 14 months starting from 4th quarter 2013 and the project will be implemented directly by UNDP. The Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources (HCENR) of the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Physical Development, the national focal point for UNFCCC and the Designated National Authority (DNA) for the CDM is the main beneficiary of the Project Initiation Plan.
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