The National MRV Transparency Project is a first of its kind project in the region which is being developed by the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment. The main objective of the MRV Transparency Project is to enhance the capability of all actors in the UAE to effectively collect data, measure performance against set national objectives and eventually demonstrate the progress that is made by the UAE in the implementation of its national determined contributions (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and the Net Zero by 2050 target. In line with the UAE Digital Strategy, the project is designed to streamline and automate the data collection, emissions quantification and reporting of GHG and AQ pollutant inventories for the UAE. The project covers the following sectors: energy, waste, industrial processes, agriculture, forestry and other land-use forms.
The project is unique in its design because it builds an inventory for both greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as air quality pollutants (AQP) inventory. The combination of both the GHG and AQP inventories in the MRV Transparency System project is an important and unique aspect of the project as it brings efficiency to the collection of data, reducing duplication of data and reduces the administrative burden for both reporting streams. This is an ambitious undertaking for the UAE, since this is the first country in the region to integrate greenhouse gas and air quality pollutants inventories through an online platform for unified reporting. The project is currently at the alpha version of development. A beta private version is anticipated to be released in early 2024. That version will be opened to a selection of national entities across the UAE for testing of its functionality. At a later stage, it is anticipated to expand beyond emissions quantification to include other aspects required by the enhanced transparency framework, including adaptation actions, and tracking of the UAE’s progress towards achieving NDCs and other national objectives.

https://mrvbetapub.azurewebsites.net/

• United Arab Emirates

Currently there is no other IT-base tool within the region that has the same capability and scope, covering both GHG and AQP inventories. This means that there is a very strong opportunity for the replication of such a project, not just within UAE but also in the region.

Replicability within the UAE: Due to the federal system of governance of the UAE, this project can be replicated and implemented at the sub-national level, where each of the country's seven emirate can develop their own MRV tool which would be then linked to the national system. This approach will enable the capacity that has been built an the national level to be used to guide toe replication of the project at the emirate-level. A good example of this replication opportunity is demonstrated by the emirate of Abu Dhabi. As the largest emirate, Abu Dhabi has started the process of developing its MRV system based on the national experience. While there are critical differences between the national level and emirate-level MRV system, it is anticipated that some other emirates may also pursue the possibility of developing emirate-level systems based on the national approach, where the technical support of the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment will be crucial.

Secondly, the UAE's MRV Transparency System has been developed following international guidelines set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for greenhouse gases and the European Monitoring & Evaluation Programme of the European Environment Agency (EMEP/EEA) guidebook for air quality pollutants. These are available to any countries that are willing to implement such a project, although a lot of personalization to the national context is required. There is potential for replication of the project among the GCC and other countries in the middle east. The experience of the UAE in developing this tool can offer guidance and motivation to other countries within the region and beyond, to replicate such a system, tailored to their specific circumstances.

Although the project involves the setting up of crucial set of IT infrastructure and processes that will enable the UAE to meet its international objectives as set out under the Paris Agreement, as well as tracking progress towards other national objectives, to ensure its sustainability, the development process has covered other aspects beyond the technical development. The development process of the project involved the development of a robust implementation framework, including legal and regulatory aspects as well as institutional arrangements involving both federal (national) level entities as well as local governments. These other aspects that will ensure sustainability of the project are as follows:

1. Robust legal framework: due to the requirements of reporting entities to provide data to the national MRV Transparency System, it is critical to implement laws and/or regulations that formalize the institutional setup, and enable data sharing between entities while taking high precaution on data confidentiality of reporting entities. The project has established a strong legal framework which aims to ensure that data can be obtained in a timely manner, in the format required and data confidentiality guaranteed.

2) Institutional Arrangements: due to the broad array of reporting entities that will utilize the tool, practical and smoothly functioning institutional arrangements are necessary to avoid duplication of stakeholders efforts, avoid double counting and inconsistencies between different sectors. The MRV Transparency Project has established an technical team that bring together experts from different entities, covering the identified sectors. The technical team is the coordination body designated to coordinate the inventory compilation process and consists of suitable expertise from the different sectors covered. The strong institutional framework ensures that the project's sustainability is not dependent upon individual people but rather on strong institutional memory and processes.

Through its collaborative nature driven by the inclusion of all institutions that are relevant and bear responsibility for the achievement of the UAE's climate action, this project promotes the values of people centricity, where inclusion and broad stakeholder engagement has been undertaken throughout all phases of the project to ensure buy in by all stakeholders. The project has undertaken several meetings with stakeholders, and in some cases where it was deemed necessary, individual one on one consultations with specific entities were held. Recognizing the importance of the required reporting and the obligations of the UAE to report on its climate action, the project further incorporates elements of equality for all stakeholders in spite of the different levels of capacity, emissions and even size where some emirates are larger than others. Secondly, the project has also taken active steps to ensure that the principles of data integrity and confidentiality have been integrated in the design. Active efforts have been undertaken to provide stakeholders with the confidence that the National MRV Transparency System aims to improve and ease the already existing practice of reporting while providing an opportunity to automate data processes which in some entities, are very manual and laborious. The project promotes the shared responsibility values across all reporting actors in the UAE by enabling a unified system that can consolidate data from multiple sources integrated into one national inventory.