UNDP addresses emissions reduction issues

National, Normal
Source:

PATRICK TALU

THE United Nations Development Fund (UNDP) office in PNG has taken some rigorous step to address three important needs associated with reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).
UNDP country representative Jan-Jilles vader Hoever said last week at the three-day PNG media conference that the United Nations, through UNDP, was focusing on three immediate needs identified in the REDD road map, developed by the GoPNG and its development partners.
Mr Hoever singled out the three identified needs as:
* Institutional capacity building support to the Office of Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability; 
* Assessment of information needs for key REDD building blocks, economic opportunity cost calculations and benefit sharing mechanisms; and 
* Establishing stakeholder engagement processes and building awareness.
Mr Hoever said in this regard, in the area of mitigation, UNDP was focusing its efforts on building the capacity of developing countries to chart their own low-carbon development path, through advising them on “win-win” solutions for effective emission reductions, improved access to energy, sustainable land management, and REDD.
He said: “UNDP was also helping to build the country’s national capacity to access, integrate and sequence different sources of finance; both international and national, public and private to effectively deal with the climate change threat, as well as to redirect the economies towards low-carbon development paths.
“Even with reduced emissions from industrialised countries and adaptation efforts for the most vulnerable countries, UNDP must also assist PNG shift to low-carbon development pathways.
“This is necessary so that future poverty reduction efforts do not contribute further to climate change and to ensure that the ‘right to develop’ is not constrained by climate change considerations,” Mr Hoever said.