Thirty-eighth session of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 38)

Closing statement by Nepal on behalf of the Least Developed Countries Group

Bonn, Germany

Mr. Chair and distinguished delegates,

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the LDC Group. The LDC group associates itself with the statements made by Fiji on behalf of G77 and China, Swaziland on behalf of the Africa Group, and the statement to be made by Nauru on behalf of AOSIS.

First of all, let me congratulate you and thank you for your hard work during this session. We would also like to thank all the Facilitators and the Secretariat for the many long hours endured during this meeting.

Chair, we are generally pleased with the overall outcomes of SBSTA. Unlike the other Subsidiary Body, we have made some progress under SBSTA. It is extremely disappointing that we did not make parallel progress in the SBI as many of the issues are closely interlinked. The pressure of time to resolve issues at the next session has been made even more difficult through the failure of SBI.

On the Nairobi Work Programme we are generally happy with the way this has turned out. For LDCs the Nairobi Work Programme should not be just a talk shop and information gathering process. It should deliver meaningful outcomes on the ground. To date, LDCs have seen very little evidence of the Nairobi Work Programme in our countries. We stress the need to focus on the delivery of tangible outcomes in future meetings.

On REDD+, we again see good progress. For many LDCs, action on REDD+ will be our major contribution to global mitigation and adaptation action. But we can only make this contribution if we have the necessary capacity to address deforestation. This is a significant challenge. The drivers of deforestation in our countries are complex, and addressing these drivers is even more complex. We call on all UN agencies and donor agencies to give particular attention to LDCs in this respect. We could become the victims of higher deforestation rates if our capacity is not up to the same standard as other forested developing countries. We can fall victim to the concept known as “leakage”. So, capacity building is essential for us.

Another critical issue for LDCs is agriculture. We are disappointed with the outcome on agriculture. Some Parties have tried to make this issue unduly complicated and tried to introduce concepts that are beyond the mandate of this body to consider. The conclusions we have now are minimal and not very action-oriented. For LDCs, the impacts of climate change on agriculture will have significant implications for our food security and hence we were hoping for more concrete outcomes. Nevertheless, we look forward to presenting our views in the submission process and contributing to the in-session workshop in Warsaw.

Chair, we welcome the encouragement for the Advisory Board of the Climate Technology Centre and Network to conclude its work on modalities and procedures and the strong encouragement for countries to nominate their National Designated Entities as a matter of urgency.

On market and non market mechanisms, we note there has been progress. We are still struggling to understand the concept of the Framework of Various Approaches. We could have created a monster that will consume us all, or we may have established a useful toolbox. It is up to us to decide whether it is a monster or a toolbox. From our perspective, a neatly defined toolbox under the authority of the COP is the desired outcome. We look forward to the submission process on all elements of the market mechanisms and look forward to the workshop on all three elements. This may help to ensure that we create a toolbox rather than a monster. On the issue of the workshops, we encourage you to consider the best timing for this workshop. We believe that a pre-session workshop, just prior to our coordination meetings in Warsaw, would be the preferred option. This way, we can ensure full participation of LDCs and particularly those people that have been following the issue.

Chair, these are just a few of the issues we have covered in this session. LDCs have participated actively in many others.

We stand ready to engage at the next session of SBSTA in Warsaw.

Finally, we thank you for all your hard work in steering us towards many great outcomes during your chairmanship.

Thank you.