This paper aims to evaluate potential factors that enable developing countries to update national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories on a regular basis, by analyzing to what extent each factor differentiates frequency of submissions by countries of national communications and/or biennial update reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). To this end, the following steps were taken: (1) identification of arrangements and processes for the preparation of national GHG inventories to be used as evaluation criteria; (2) grouping of developing countries by frequency of submissions, and selection of their national reports for evaluation; (3) scoring of the selected national reports against the evaluation criteria; (4) analysis of the assigned scores. The finding indicates that funding support under the UNFCCC has not been translated to building a capacity to produce regular inventories, suggesting that a potential value exists for another type of support that specifically meets the needs of developing countries to achieve a sustainable inventory system. As GHG inventories are the foundation for tracking progress towards mitigation goals, if the enhanced transparency framework outlined in the Paris Agreement is to be successfully implemented, capacity building on GHG inventory in developing countries should be given priority.
The aim of the present study is to use data from relevant government agencies to understand the change in rice production and land use since 2000 in North Sumatra, Indonesia, and to examine the combination of climatic and socio-economic factors affecting the change. Interviews and focused group meetings were also held to overcome the limitation of data availability. This study finds that the consistent increase in rice productivity has been offset by the reduction in rice harvest area, resulting in almost no growth in rice production over the last decade in North Sumatra. In contrast, oil palm plantations, particularly smallholder estates, have been expanding in the province. Four factors are identified as those affecting the change in land use: (1) climate conditions, (2) economic environment, (3) rice planting index, and (4) distance from palm oil enterprise estates. At the time of substantial reduction in rice harvest area, unusual climate conditions were observed across different regencies in North Sumatra, as was the case in 2006, when Medan, the provincial capital, recorded the highest annual rainfall during the last 20 years. The responses of the farmers to the rice planting index and the proximity to palm oil enterprise estates, both of which vary across the province, are differentiated into three types: (1) land use conversion from rice production to oil palm plantation, (2) conversion to other cash crops, and (3) staying with rice production. As oil palm is more resilient to rainfall variability, land use conversion from rice to oil palm can be considered a good adaptation from the farmers perspective. The large scale of the conversions, however, may be a threat to the food security of the society as a whole. This indicates that the countermeasures face trade-offs between different social groups, as well as between adaptation actions and other development priorities.
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