Topic: unfccc

This paper identifies the key elements needed to ensure enhanced action on technology transfer and development and then evaluates the approaches taken in major country positions. It finds a number of important convergences in these positions and identifies four types of institutions that recur in country positions: central bodies, dedicated funds, regional institutions and coordinating committees. Matching these institutions to functional needs suggests that a combination of institutional structures best meets all the institutional needs of a technology agreement.

In December 2009, diplomats from around the world will convene in Copenhagen, Denmark to decide on a new international agreement on climate change. The following questions and answers address the agreements and structures that form the basis of the Copenhagen climate change negotiations.

If reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) is to work effectively, developing countries will need support to build the capacities required for enforcing their own laws and regulations. At present, timber production that violates the developing country’s own laws both acts as a barrier to REDD and costs these countries billions of dollars per year. This paper examines the approach taken by Parties to the challenge of illegally produced timber, and proposes measures to support developing countries in tackling this problem that could form part of the climate framework to be negotiated in Copenhagen.

World Greenhouse Gas Emissions in 2005 is a comprehensive view of global, anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The chart in this working paper is an updated version of the original chart, which appeared in Navigating the Numbers: Greenhouse Gas Data and International Climate Policy (WRI, 2005).

This paper seeks to facilitate progress on the provisions in the BAP by examining how Chinese climate change policy and the implementation of these policies is monitored at the domestic level and may offer insights to the international community as they consider an international structure for measuring, reporting and verifying developing country actions. China provides a rich set of examples of such policies due to its active efforts to cut its growth in energy use and reducing its dependence on fossil fuels. The paper therefore looks at mitigation policies and measures in China across a variety of sectors and at policies and measures that employ both qualitative and quantitative measurement systems.

This working paper aims to clarify the issues around insurance mechanisms designed to improve resilience among the poor to climate change impacts. We hope the analysis will inform the ongoing insurance discussions at the UNFCCC in the build up to the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen in December 2009.

Technology is one of the four “pillars” of a post- 2012 climate policy laid out in the Bali Action Plan (BAP). In practice a multilateral climate agreement will not be the primary driver of clean technology development, deployment, and transfer. But given the central importance of this issue in the BAP, the provisions for technology in the evolving climate agreement will have a major bearing on the success of negotiations. Designed correctly, they may also play an important complementary role in facilitating the adoption of clean technologies.

This paper reviews Party submissions to the UNFCCC and identifies emerging areas of consensus and debate that may offer constructive grounds for negotiations going forward. The paper explores how an international agreement might facilitate and encourage a range of technology cooperation efforts by channeling funding, providing a forum for capacity building and learning exchange, and creating a framework for measuring, reporting, and verifying support and actions.

As country representatives meet under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to forge a new climate agreement, a major challenge dominates discussions: how can a system be created to assure that countries are held accountable for their commitments and actions to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and their obligations to provide technology, finance and capacity building support? This working paper seeks to facilitate progress on this critical component of a successful climate agreement. It aims to help policy-makers, UNFCCC negotiators and civil society groups navigate the complexity of the “MRV” challenge by focusing attention on central questions in advance of the December talks in Copenhagen and presenting country positions to date.