The concept of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) has been proliferating in the policy agendas during past several years, especially in the light of the post-Kyoto climate negotiations. However, taking into account a rather broad scope of this concept and relatively short history (it has been introduced in Bali Action Plan in 2007), the understanding of the NAMA framework and its practical implementation remain limited even among experts and policy-makers. At the same time NAMA framework can offer developing countries a useful tool to capitalize on the opportunities for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and transforming their development towards sustainable pathways.
One of the sectors, which offer significant mitigation potential in developing countries, is the building sector; especially taking into account rapid urbanisation, increase in access to energy, population and economic growth in developing countries, which will drive up the energy consumption of this sector in the future.
This paper therefore aims at bringing clarity to the topic of NAMAs, suggesting a strategy of dealing with conceptual ambiguity and providing recommendations and guidelines for policy-makers on designing and implementing NAMAs aimed at improving energy efficiency in the building sector with a particular focus on tropical and sub-tropical climates.
The paper covers the following topics:
• generic background for the NAMA concept, it origin and founding principles
• potential areas for NAMA interventions, policy and technology
• technological measures in buildings in hot and humid climates
• development process for policy NAMAs that aim to improve energy efficiency in buildings
The paper concludes on future prospects for policy NAMAs related to energy efficient buildings and the necessary actions that NAMA host countries need to take in order to efficiently utilize the NAMA for climate change mitigation.
