GBEP Activity Groups 5 and 2 update: outcomes of the meetings held in Bonn on 2014 July 2014

Within the Working Group on Capacity Building, GBEP convened in Bonn (Germany) on 2-4 July 2014, the meetings of the Activity Group 5 (AG5) “The Global Renewable Energy Atlas - Bioenergy Component” (led by IRENA), and of the Activity Group 2 (AG2) “"Raising awareness, and sharing of data and experience on the implementation of the GBEP indicators".

The AG5 meeting had two main objectives: on the one hand, discuss the details of the guidance on how to use and interpret maps for bioenergy sustainable development, through a review of existing maps and analysis of underlying assumptions, on the other hand develop a methodological framework to reflect/access GBEP Sustainability Indicators in the Global Atlas. A first session of the meeting saw presentations from Brazil, FAO, IRENA, Japan and South Africa, which provided examples of how relevant is geospatial information to map sustainability aspects of the potential bioenergy production; what geospatial data can better help identify or illustrate the risks for sustainability; and minimum requirements that could be foreseen to identify if a sustainability aspect was adequately illustrated by a map. The second session discussed how to identify the process and resources required to reflect/access the GBEP Sustainability Indicators through the GIS platform. Participants discussed technical solutions on how a GBEP sustainability indicator can be related to map-based information, and which would be more relevant to the mapping exercise.
The Activity Group 5 recognized the importance to measure the GBEP sustainability indicators as a set, and that only through measurement of all 24 indicators a full sustainability assessment of bioenergy production is possible. At the same time, discussion concluded that that for many GBEP sustainability indicators mapping is not feasible. For this reason the AG5 agreed to modify its current scope of work and work towards the development of guidance for users on limitations, as well as collection of best practices, regarding the mapping for each of the 24 GBEP sustainability indicators. In this way, maps would be used as a tool to better understand the bioenergy production, but not with prescriptive/directional approaches and not as a definitive decision support mechanism for policy-makers.
IRENA, leader of the AG5, will now work on a new scope of work to be shared among the AG5 members in view of the next GBEP meetings to be held in Rome (FAO HQs) mid November 2014.

The AG2 meetings had as objective that of sharing lessons learned by countries that performed or are performing piloting projects on the measurement of GBEP Sustainability Indicators, and saw presentations from Argentina, Germany, Indonesia and USA.
Moreover, the meeting intended to identify key items where further discussion is needed, in particular for indicators that would need some kind of refinement, in order to further facilitate their use. Building on a report developed by Ecofys and commissioned by the Dutch Government on initial lessons learned and recommendations for the development of the GBEP indicators from five pilot studies (Colombia, Ghana, Germany, Indonesia and the Netherlands), Participants discussed and identified the main emerging issues: data availability;  data appropriateness; data handling (capacity); attribution to bioenergy; and imported/exported biomass. The results of this discussion were compiled in a table which is now subject to further discussion among all Partners and Observers and will be shared in the next GBEP meeting, which will take place on 10-14 November 2014 in Rome, at FAO Headquarters.

Presentations and outcomes of the meetings are available on the GBEP website.

 

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