In 2011, well before countries undertook obligations to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and enhance climate resilience under the Paris Agreement, Ethiopia launched the Climate Resilient Green Economy Strategy (CRGE) which is an ambitious national blueprint towards reducing its emissions by 64% from a business-as-usual trajectory by 2030. The CRGE strategy anchors on five development sectors (Agriculture, Forest, Industry, Transport, and Energy).  The Ethiopian NDCs are fully anchored on the CRGE and GTP2 targets and reaffirms Ethiopia’s continued commitment to strengthening the resilience of other economic sectors by strengthening forest development for the wider environment and community benefits. And hence, the Ethiopian NDCs are considered as an implementing mechanism of the CRGE strategy. The 2015 NDC  has specific aims to limit its net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2030 to 145 Mt CO2e or lower and also to undertake adaptation initiatives to reduce the vulnerability of its population, environment, and economy to the adverse effects of climate change.

The agriculture and forest sectors are key to meet the targets of NDCs and CRGE, and their roles and relevant projects are highlighted as follows.

Component 1: The agriculture sector with its key sub-sectors (livestock, crop, soil, etc.) are considered as one of the four pillars in the CRGE strategy and is key for meeting the targets of NDCs. The agriculture sector alone accounts for about 51% of the national emission with 42% (65 Mt CO2e) from the livestock and 9% (12 Mt CO2e) from crop cultivation. In order to mitigate climate change and increase resilience to adverse impacts of predicted climate change, over 93 projects initiated principally focused on the agriculture sector (i.e. 22 projects for livestock and 71 projects for crop and soil) for the period 2011-2019.

With regards to the implementation of Ethiopian NDCs, the agriculture sector NDC roadmap was developed for the implementation period between 2020 and 2030 by identifying actions prioritized in the CRGE Strategy. For the 2020-2030 agriculture NDC road map, more than 16 project actions were planned for implementation and these include among others: small and largescale irrigation, Enhance lower-emitting techniques for agriculture, Improved manure management, Rangeland and pastureland management, Value chain efficiency improvement, Agricultural mechanization.

The agriculture sector has several FLAGSHIP projects/programs such as Sustainable Land Management (SLM), Agriculture Development Program (ADP), Livestock Master Plan (LMP), Productive Safety Net Program (PSNP), Livestock and Fisheries Sector Development Project (LSFDP), etc., which enable the sector to discharge its responsibilities in meeting the targets of Ethiopia’s NDC ROAD MAP 2020-2030.

Component 2: The forest sector is also considered as one of the four pillars in the CRGE strategy and is key for meeting the targets of NDCs. The forest sector alone accounts for about 37% of national emissions in 2010  and is recognized as the second-largest contributor of GHG emissions. Nearly half of all forestry emissions were tied to deforestation to expand agricultural land, and the other half to deforestation due to mainly fuelwood collection and agricultural expansion.   In order to mitigate climate change and increase resilience to adverse impacts of predicted climate change, over 22 projects initiated principally focused on halting, reducing, and reversing the degradation of forests, rangeland or cultivated land, and may lead to an increase in terrestrial carbon stocks, while improving the resilience of water services and crop and fodder production to predicted climate change.

 However, currently existing MRV capacity at organization level, individual-level and enabling environment level and largely existing dryland forests and shrub vegetation types make difficulties for the quantifying and tracking of emission reduction of the forest sector over time difficult.

With regards to the implementation of Ethiopian NDCs, the forest sector NDC roadmap was also developed for the implementation period between 2020 and 2030 by identifying actions prioritized in the CRGE Strategy. For the 2020-2030 forest NDC road map 7 project actions were planned for implementation and these include among others: reduce deforestation through substituting fuelwood with other renewable energy sources (biogas, fuel-efficient stoves, etc.), large and small scale commercial afforestation/reforestation, forest and woodland management. 

Furthermore, Ethiopia prepared its 10 Years National Forest Sector Development Program  ( 2018-2028).  The Pillars of the program are: 1) Enabling Environment and Institutional Development 2) Sustainable  Forest Productions and value chains 3) Forest Environmental Functions 4) Forest and Rural Livelihoods 5) Urban Greenery and Urban Forests and cross-cutting components.   

Recently the government of Ethiopia has launched a 10-Years Perspective Development Plan (PDP-10, i.e. 2020/21 – 2030/31), which is aligned with SDGs and aims at building a prosperous community by 2030 and beyond. Institutional Capacity Building specific for NDCs needs to be anchored on meeting the targets of PDP-10. Towards meeting the targeted objectives of Ethiopia’s NDCs as well as PDP-10, development sectors need to integrate current and future climate change adaptation and mitigation measures in their respective development plan as part of NDC implementation to ensure that development is “climate proofed”. In this regard, the agriculture and forest sectors, which are currently key to CRGE implementation, need to be strengthened to overcome the capacity constraints at systemic, institutional, and individual levels for achieving the targets of NDCs set by the Ethiopian government to make sure the current and future economic development is sustainably climate proofed and resilient.

In order  to support the implementation of the updated NDC of Ethiopia, UNDP  developed  Deepening the efforts to implement NDC in Ethiopia ( DEEP DIVE). The objective of the project is to assess progress and to identify technical and capacity challenges in implementing the updated  NDC and  to effectively contribute to the enhancement of the 2020 NDC ambition.