2015 climate agreement: on track

The COP19 meeting which ended on Saturday 23^rd November has kept governments on a track towards a universal climate agreement in 2015 and including significant new decisions that will cut emissions from deforestation and on loss and damage.

Looking towards 2015, countries decided to initiate or identify domestic preparation for their intended national contributions towards the agreement, which will come into force from 2020. Parties ready to do this will submit clear and transparent plans well in advance of COP21 in Paris and by the first quarter of 2015. Countries at the meeting also resolved to close the pre 2020 ambition gap by intensifying technical work and more frequent engagement of Ministers.

At the conference it was also decided that an international mechanism would be developed to provide most vulnerable populations with better protection against loss and damage caused by extreme weather events and slow onset events such as rising sea levels. Detailed work on the so called ‘Warsaw international mechanism for loss and damage’ will begin next year.

Governments provided more clarity on mobilising finance to support developing country actions to curb emissions and adapt to climate change. This will include requesting developed countries to prepare biennial submissions on their updated strategies and approaches for scaling up finance between 2014 and 2020. Concrete announcements of forthcoming contributions of public climate finance to support developing nation action were also announced at the conference by countries including Norway, the UK and Finland.

Helping developing nations
During COP19 48 of the poorest countries of the world finalised a comprehensive set of plans to deal with the inevitable impacts of climate change. These plans are hopefully going to enable the countries to better assess the immediate impacts of climate change and what they need in the way of support to become more resilient. Developed countries, including Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland have also paid or pledged over US$ 100 million to add to the Adaptation Fund, which has now started to fund national projects.

Adapted from press release by Claira Lloyd

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