Staying on Track from Paris: Advancing the Key Elements of the Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement adopted in December 2015 provides essential building blocks for universal action to address climate change. Now, much work is needed to breathe life into the provisions and commitments of the Agreement in order to realize the globally agreed vision to limit temperature rise, build the ability to adapt to climate impacts, and align financial flows toward zerocarbon and climate-resilient development. The Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) must continue to cooperate effectively to unpack and clarify the key tasks and activities outlined in the Agreement in order to provide a well-defined pathway to implementation. This paper takes an in-depth look at the Paris Agreement, highlighting important outcomes and the tasks and activities that now need to be undertaken to elaborate and develop the critical rules and processes under the Agreement. Ensuring that these rules and processes are strong and effective will be essential to promoting ambitious climate action and accelerating it in the coming years

A Vision for a Robust Global Stocktake

This issue brief reviews ways to make the GST most effective within the confines of the structure already negotiated. It builds on publications under the Independent Global Stocktake (iGST)—a collaborative effort by climate modelers, analysts, campaigners, and advocates that aims to support the GST process. It was prepared on the basis of a multiyear research effort by multiple organizations under the iGST’s “Designing a Robust Stocktake” discussion series, which analyzes the GST from a variety of angles, such as mitigation, adaptation, finance, and equity. The publications in this series were produced through targeted interviews, webinars, written feedback, and direct inputs.</jats:p

Toward More Effective Implementation of the Paris Agreement: Learning from 30 years of experience

Since the early 1990s, countries have been working together under the United Nations to develop a framework for international action on climate change. This cooperation has led to rules, principles, institutions, and procedures to guide and support global action. Most notably, countries have adopted the UNFCCC and have focused on its implementation, including through two operational agreements: the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. Since Parties to the UNFCCC adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015, they have focused significant attention to finalizing and negotiating the rules, procedures, modalities, and operational guidance that govern implementation of the agreement. Parties are turning their attention to the action and support that will be needed to fully implement the Paris Agreement’s obligations and its Rulebook. The objective of the paper is to provide recommendations for strengthening the architecture and implementation of the Paris Agreement. The paper does so by drawing on experiences under the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol, including the existing transparency framework, Talanoa Dialogue, and the Kyoto Protocol’s compliance committee, and by considering the unique impact that science and the work of the IPCC, equity, and leadership have each had on implementation efforts.</jats:p

Accounting framework for the Post-2020 period

Accounting rules and procedures will dictate how progress is tracked for various possible types of mitigation contributions that might be included in the 2015 agreement and how their achievement will be determined. Without such rules, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to accurately track progress toward individual contributions as well as towards limiting warming to 2° C or below. The report explores the components of a robust and rigorous accounting framework, lessons learned from existing accounting frame-works, and how such a framework can be developed for the 2015 agreement. The objective is to support the establishment of a sufficiently robust and rigorous common accounting framework for the 2015 agreement, including accounting rules for international transfers of units from marketbased mechanisms and the land sector

Increasing Climate Data and Ambition in Indonesia through Enhanced Transparency and Incentive Schemes

This paper considers the concept of a “data loop” —a relationship between the government and the private sector that focuses on strengthening collaborative efforts to enhance climate ambition through data sharing—in the Indonesian context. In the data loop, the private sector shares climate and GHG emissions data with the government, and the government facilitates mandatory reporting systems to properly collect this data and incentivize voluntary reporting, further encouraging more robust data sharing. A data loop could generate the impetus for the private sector to provide the data required, and the government could, in turn, provide greater clarity through more robust assessments of efforts and projections, which would be supported by strengthened domestic and international measurement, tracking, reporting, regulation, and verification systems. The concept of the data loop builds upon previous research suggesting that a similar relationship could lead to enhanced climate action: an ambition loop. An ambition loop is a virtuous feedback loop in which bold policy action is supported by bold company leadership, resulting in the acceleration of further business action, faster progress to meet national targets, and the seizure of larger market opportunities. The government pushes companies by establishing bold targets and strong policies, and companies push the government by showing commercial demand and economic possibilities (Metzger et al. 2018).</jats:p