Al-Anbat - Raneem Alhalawani
Jordan is the first developing country to build monitoring,
reporting and verification systems and a record of greenhouse emissions data in
accordance with international standards.
Al-Anbat - The World Bank confirmed that Jordan is facing
climatic challenges, including rising temperatures, decreasing rain, increasing
drought, and shrinking water resources due to evaporation.
He explained in a recent report that Jordan is still highly
dependent on imports of fossil fuels with its limited natural resources and the
severe scarcity of water resources for a population of 10.3 million people,
including more than a million refugees. He explained that the extreme heat and
scarcity of water resources lead to a high demand for energy. They
increase the financial burden on the state budget and affect the
competitiveness of the economy.
Jordan was the first developing country to build monitoring,
reporting and verification systems and a registry for greenhouse emissions data
in accordance with international standards that form the building blocks of a
future emissions trading system, in collaboration with the World Bank’s Climate
Repository Program and the Partnership for Market Implementation to develop and
test this digital infrastructure.
The report stated that Jordan, in order to prepare for its
monitoring, reporting and verification system, issued in 2019 a decree on
climate change that establishes the institutional and regulatory framework on
climate change in government agencies, with the assistance of the Partnership
for Market Equipping, which preceded the Partnership for Market Implementation.
Jordan has also established its monitoring, reporting and
verification system to track greenhouse gas emissions in sectors such as
energy, transportation and agriculture, and to account for emissions and their
reductions, and to link the results to its national contribution to combating
climate change, and its data logging system has been established to support
trading operations for eligible projects in international carbon markets.
In the midst of this process, it was decided to make this software open source
and make it available to any interested country.
He shows that work is also continuing in this regard in
Jordan, which is preparing a long-term strategy to reduce emissions in order to
achieve long-term sustainable economic growth and low carbon emissions,
explaining that in 2020, Jordan launched the 10-year national strategy for the
energy sector to improve its mix of sources energy, and reduce carbon emissions
by 10% by 2030 while reducing its dependence on imports.
He stressed that within the framework of the project
(Program for Financing Inclusive, Transparent and Climate-Sensitive Investments
According to Results), the monitoring, reporting and verification system is
being expanded to include 22 institutions and ministries.
The program will help integrate climate change
considerations into the decision-making process, and enable the monitoring,
reporting and verification system to calculate greenhouse gas emissions
reductions for climate-smart projects to see if they qualify to participate in
the carbon market from Jordan to the MENA region and beyond.
And Senior Climate Change Specialist at the World Bank,
Harikumar Gadi, said that Jordan has a leading role in the field of climate, as
it is the first developing country in the world to possess this type of
comprehensive systems and its monitoring, reporting and verification system at
a high degree of quality, explaining that the Bank is currently unifying its
approach to facilitate its implementation in other countries under its new
initiative (Partnership for Market Implementation).
He explained that this system is now being simulated in the
West Bank, Gaza and Sri Lanka with the help of the Partnership for Market
Equip, stressing that many countries in the Middle East and North Africa,
Africa, Latin America and Asia have expressed their interest in the open source
technology of monitoring, reporting, verification and data recording systems.