Lebanon’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) is a nationwide sectoral document aiming at both building resilience and improving adaptation as it lowers emissions, and therefore ensuring the country takes advantage of the synergies between adaptation and mitigation. It adopts a twin-track in the choice of the measures, such as a better treatment of wastewater that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions whilst protecting national water resources. About mitigation, the INDC has two targets (i) the country’s contribution (unconditional target) and (ii) offering a wider mitigation target conditional on receiving international support (conditional target). Mitigation and adaptation actions considered in the development of the INDC targets have been selected using a bottom-up approach, employing existing sectoral plans and strategies as a basis.
Concerning the adaptation measures, to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change on environmental, economic, and social systems, Lebanon will promote the following (i) mainstreaming and building institutional capacity; (ii) mainstreaming climate change adaptation into biodiversity, forestry, and agriculture sectors; (iii) reach land degradation neutrality by 2030; (iv) mainstreaming climate change adaptation into electricity infrastructure, tourism, human settlements and infrastructure, and public health sectors. As for the mitigation measures, the document envisages the following as unconditional target by 2030 (i) a GHG emission reduction of 15% compared to the Business As-Usual (BAU) scenario; (ii) 15% of the power and heat demand generated by renewable energy sources; (iii) a 3% reduction in power demand through energy-efficiency measures. The INDC covers the following IPCC sectors: Energy, industrial processes and other product use, agriculture, land-use, land-use change and forestry, and waste.
To make agriculture and forestry more productive and sustainable, the INDC proposes the following interventions (i) promote Good Agricultural Practices through the support of organic farming and obtaining quality certificates; (ii) develop an early warning system for agricultural pests and climatic conditions; (iii) improve water efficiency and decrease water loss in irrigation; (iv) rehabilitate irrigation canals; (v) implement the National Forest Program; (vi) raise tree nurseries’ productivity; (vii) plant trees; (viii) implement the forest fire fighting strategy; (ix) apply forest integrated pest management.
Rural poverty can be tackled through the twin-track approach adopted by the document: since the forestry sector supports livelihoods in the rural areas - for example by providing charcoal, fuelwood, medicinal and aromatic plants - the planting of trees also promotes resilience to climate change through protecting rural livelihoods and ecosystem services.
To increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, the measures promoted are (i) conduct needs assessment and define pilot national monitoring sites and species (coastal zones are considered a priority; (ii) design and implement pilot action plans; (iii) improve water security such as through increasing artificial recharge of groundwater aquifers and increasing surface storage dams and hill lakes; (iv) optimize the use of the current water resources through the rehabilitation of the existing network and the installation of water meters; (v) increase wastewater collection and treatment; (vi) increase water reuse, especially after wastewater treatment.
As for Governance, the Climate Change Coordination Committee will be responsible for examining sectoral vulnerabilities, assessing priorities, and designing actions in cooperation with concerned ministries to increase resilience and minimize impacts of adverse climate change effects. The work will build on the sectoral vulnerability assessments completed for the Third National Communication as well as on other relevant studies. Line ministries would remain accountable for the implementation of sectoral strategies and action plans, both at the national and local levels.