Chris Webb of CDKN reports from CDKN’s official side event that the Lima COP needs to provide the guidance on what contributions countries should make towards combating climate change; otherwise an ambitious climate deal will be much further out of reach.

CDKN hosted a side event today at COP20 where a series of leading countries (including Bangladesh, The Gambia, and Peru) showcased early ideas for their INDCs. Whilst there was plenty of discussion on process, a lack of guidance on content and how this will feed in to the elements of a 2015 deal from the UNFCCC continues to hinder progress on exactly what contributions countries might bring forward. Unless Lima provides this, many countries are unlikely to have sufficient time to pull together ambitious contributions in sufficient time before Paris.

Despite this lack of guidance, the event highlighted some inspiring work already being undertaken to prepare ambitious INDCs. Five key messages emerged which we think might be helpful for others’ preparations:

1. Countries already have lots of existing building blocks an INDC can use (see recent CDKN blog for more details).
2. Countries will however therefore have different starting points and be looking to prepare different types of contributions – to make commitments nationally determined they will necessarily differ from each other – and this could create comparability issues in the absence of clear UNFCCC guidelines.
3. INDCs need to embed development, and economic development, if they are to be sustainable.
4. INDCs developed without robust participatory stakeholder engagement with all relevant stakeholders will likely never be implementable.
5. There remains a big understanding and language gap between the private and public sector. Ensuring the private sector is part of the stakeholder engagement process and dialogue from the start is an important way to bridge this gap.

However ensuing discussion at the event echoed recent warning messages from the World Bank and UNEP that the INDCs really need to deliver transformational change to avert dangerous climate change. Whilst the event showed that this process has kicked off in several countries, but there is likely still much to be done to ratchet up action in subsequent periods.

07:00: Launch of new Climate Finance Advisory Service (CFAS) Guide
A new guide by the Climate Finance Advisory Service (CFAS) highlights the key climate finance issues on the agenda of the Conference of the Parties (COP) and the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP) at their meeting in Lima, Peru in December 2014. The CFAS Guide: The Status of Climate Finance at COP20, Lima is authored by David Eckstein and Alpha Kaloga (Germanwatch), Alix Mazounie (RAC-France), Sven Harmeling (CARE), Raju Chhetri (independent consultant) and Henriette Imelda (IESR), with support from Sönke Kreft (Germanwatch).

 

The Guide covers:
– Long-term finance;
– Finance under the The Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for – Enhanced Action;
– The agenda of the Standing Committee on Finance;
– Climate finance funds under the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol; and
– Other climate finance issues on the COP20 agenda.

Week of 24 November
Will the Lima conference sustain progress towards a strong climate deal?
In this opinion piece, Sam Bickersteth and Kiran Sura of CDKN  ask whether COP20 will deliver a year-end high for what has been an extraordinary year for climate change. Or, will we find ourselves looking back on two weeks’ worth of talks in Lima to find some glimmers of hope?

INDCs: What existing building blocks can developing countries use?
In this review of CDKN’s partner country experience, Helen Picot, Kiran Sura and Christopher Webb of CDKN argue that many developing countries have solid foundations on which to develop their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) for presentation to the UNFCCC.

Clarifying intent: Key principles for preparing INDCs
Intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) will be high on the agenda for the COP20 climate negotiations. CDKN’s Ali Cambray, Kiran Sura and Pippa Heylings anticipate some of the discussions and propose a set of principles for governments to consider.

CDKN publishes its Events Programme
CDKN has published its extensive programme of official and unofficial side events in Lima.
Source: CDKN Global | on: 6am, December 7, 2014