End Hunger Sustainable Cities and communities Climate Change Aquatic Ecosystems Partnerships for the Goals News Canada
November 03, 2017
Bonn: The UN Climate Change Conference taking place in Bonn, Germany, from 6-17 November 2017, is expected to make progress on developing modalities, procedures and guidelines for operationalization of the Paris Agreement on climate change, which are to be finalized in 2018.
Presided over by the Government of Fiji, the Conference will include the 23rd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 23) to the UNFCCC, the 13th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 13) and the 47th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 47) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI 47).
The fourth part of the first session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA 1-4) and the second part of the first session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 1-2) will also convene. Mandated events and workshops, as well as numerous side events will be held in the margins of the formal negotiations.
Work on operationalization of the treaty in accordance with the Paris Agreement work programme commenced at the May 2016 UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, including the first meeting of the APA. It continued through COP 22 in Marrakech and the May 2017 sessions in Bonn, where Parties began to map out options for the “skeletons” of the decisions that will need to be adopted at COP 24 in 2018. Many Parties would like to see a coherent package of decisions delivered across all issues, and COP 23 is expected to capture interim progress in this regard.
During the 2017 Ministerial Dialogue convened by the COP 23 Presidency in Nadi, Fiji, countries outlined their expectations for COP 23 deliverables to get them closer to a set of guidelines on implementation of the Paris Agreement.
They highlighted the need to complete a robust framework for reporting of climate action and finance, urging COP 23 to highlight progress on reaching the US$100 billion goal in climate finance that developed countries agreed to provide to developing countries on an annual basis by 2020.
Pre-COP participants also underscored the need to provide the design for the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue “on where the world stands, where it wants to be and how it will jointly get there to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals,” including the long-term temperature goal of keeping the global average temperature rise to well below 2°C above preindustrial levels, and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C.
Indeed, a number of Parties, including Canada, China, Brazil, the EU, the Republic of Korea and South Africa, highlighted the 2018 Facilitative Dialogue among their top priorities for COP 23, which the Fijian Presidency envisions to be conducted in the spirit of ‘talanoa,’ an inclusive, participatory and transparent process that aims “to share stories, build empathy and to make wise decisions for the collective good.”
However, the GCA COP 23 agenda does not only focus on tackling world hunger and promoting sustainable cities. In addition to agriculture and human settlements, GCA thematic days are expected to deal with, inter alia, energy, water, oceans and coastal zones, transport, industry, forests and health. GCA high-level days are anticipated to specifically address the nexuses between climate action and SDG 2, and climate action and SDG 11, along with issues such as finance, resilience, innovation and gender. The 11th Focal Point Forum of the Nairobi Work Programme (NWP), to be held under COP 23 mandated events on 8 November, will also contribute to the achievement of SDG 11 by exploring the topics of human settlements and adaptation.