Published by
UNEP DTU / Wuppertal Institute
Year
2014

From theory to practice: Understanding transformational change in NAMAs

The NAMA Partnership Working Group on Sustainable Development (WG-SD) & International Partnership on Mitigation and MRV is conducting a research project on indicators of transformational change for monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). The project aims to improve the understanding of transformational change (TC) and how to MRV such that NAMAs facilitate a transformation for low emission and sustainable development to achieve the 2°C target. These indicators shall help policy-makers, investors and implementers to identify and decide which NAMA proposals should be prioritized to promote transformational change, which factors must be observed and worked on to foster transformational change through targeted interventions, and to track progress of transformational changes through MRV.

The objective of the concept paper is to propose an operational definition for what transformational change means in the context of NAMAs, taking into consideration ongoing discussions among NAMA experts, and to give an overview of theoretical approaches to sustainability transitions and transformational change, exploring their possible applicability to NAMAs. The theoretical approaches are the basis to propose hypotheses for the dynamics, indicators and success factors that foster transformational change, which is necessary to assess whether a NAMA intervention has been or can be transformational to achieve low carbon and sustainable development goals. This paper will serve as the basis for further exploration of a framework to assess the potential for transformational impacts of NAMAs.