Workshop focuses on Biennial Update Report for Mauritius

The Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity, and Environment and Sustainable Development, Mr Nazir Soobratty, and other personalities were present.  Experts from the BEA International Consultancy firm are the resource persons for the workshop.

In his address, Mr Soobratty highlighted that the workshop aims at finalising the inception report of the GHG Inventory under the first Biennial Update Report (BUR).  This process, he pointed out, is in line with the second decision of the 17^th meeting of the Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, where developing countries were requested to prepare and submit a BUR every two years.

Mauritius, emphasised the Permanent Secretary, has therefore embarked on its first BUR which will cover figures for period 2014 to 2017. The scope of the BUR is to provide an update to the most recently submitted national communities while taking into account development priorities, objectives, capacities and national circumstances, he added.

Speaking about climate change, Mr Soobratty underlined that the country is undergoing a crucial phase with high intensity of short duration rainfall events becoming more frequent as well as an unprecedented series of warmest years between 2015 and 2018.  According to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, year 2019 may be yet another milestone as the warmest year on record largely as the result of a possible El Niño phenomenon, he indicated.

Hence in this conjuncture, stated the Permanent Secretary, urgent and concrete actions are required in terms of global greenhouse gas emission reduction.  Developed countries, he further stated, should assist developing countries in their attempt to improve their resilience and adaptation capacity to protect vulnerable communities.

On this score, Mr Soobratty called on stakeholders, both from the public and private sectors, to fully collaborate with the high calibre experts from the BEA International Consultancy firm, who will undertake the three key components of the BUR project.  These are: the GHG inventory, the mitigation assessment and the setting up of a Measuring, Reporting and Verification system.