Montenegro’s Third Biennial Update Report (BUR)

The Challenge

Montenegro is in a unique situation due to its status as a Non-Annex I Party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a Candidate County for EU membership, and a Contracting Party of the Energy Community (EnC). This has an impact on the country’s international obligations for MRV and the reporting requirements concerning climate change actions.

A fully functional MRV system allows for the efficient collection and storage of relevant data, tracking of progress towards climate action goals, and an improved management process. In previous years, Aether has aided the development of Montenegro’s online MRV portal for its climate change mitigation and adaption actions. The portal is a data management site, designed to support the process of creating future reports such as National Communications (NCs), NDCs, and BURs. Further development of the online portal was needed to reflect the current institutional arrangements, improve data flows, and expand the types of information that the portal manages.

The Solution

Through collaboration with the Ministry of Ecology, Spatial Planning and Urbanism, a picture of the national institutional arrangements, data flows, expertise, tools, system and engagement activity needs was developed. Using this knowledge, Justin assessed the strengths and gaps in Montenegro’s MRV system, with the outcomes of this assessment displayed in a matrix.  The matrix provided a visual display of the current status of the MRV system across a variety of aspects that ranged from emissions projections to climate finance. The intention of this matrix is to aid in decision making, allowing Montenegro to prioritise its resources to where they are most needed.

Once the strengths and gaps of the MRV system had been established, an improvement plan was developed. This detailed suggestions for how the national MRV system could be further strengthened. It contained milestones for outputs that this would help to achieve, such as the completion of the National Action Plan (NAP). The improvement plan was added to the national online MRV portal, allowing real-time progress to be logged. A roadmap was then designed, which listed important medium-term milestones and their dates, such as the planned update to Montenegro’s Annual Data Collection Plan (ADCP). In this roadmap, these milestones and higher-level goals were linked to the list of MRV system improvements.

The Result

The MRV chapter of their third BUR will enable Montenegro to report transparently on the current capacity of the MRV system. More importantly, the online MRV portal allows Montenegro to track a variety of key information, from stakeholders to climate finance, to progress towards climate action goals. In doing so, national institutional memory is strengthened, and the development of future documentation (such as Biennial Transparency Reports (BTRs) and NCs) can be done more efficiently. The roadmap developed as part of the project sets out clear milestones for the medium term which Montenegro will have to meet. This includes the publication of key documents and deadlines for activities which will strengthen Montenegro’s MRV system.

See all case studies