WRI: 10 suggestions for promoting the Paris Agreement

(I) Mitigation: parties need to identify the characteristics of future national contribution plans (NDCs) to guide their preparation, facilitate their assessments and help monitor progress with a view to achieving national goals and common long-term goals. Parties also have the opportunity to establish a common timetable for NDCs, including an end date. In order to help ensure effective monitoring of implementation parties also need to build methodologies applicable to all emissions accounting and emission reduction accounting. In order to promote the implementation of NDCs and support the achievement of the long-term objectives of the Paris Agreement, parties may cooperate further and share best practices in the development of long-term emission reduction strategies.

(II) adaptation: all countries will carry out adaptation planning and exchange their adaptation actions with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCCC) to support global stocktaking. Ensure consistency in methodological development, reporting requirements and modalities for identifying adaptation actions through effective coordination of actions among the agencies mandated to draft these guidelines. Under the guidance of the adaptation Committee (Adaptation Committee), parties need to provide an exceptionally clear description of the effective adaptation improvement cycle, including UNFCCC's use of national adaptation communications to assess adaptation needs and identify the support needed to promote resilience.

(III) loss and damage: by making the Warsaw International Mechanism for loss and damage (Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage) permanent, parties shall create a space to increase awareness of the composition of loss and damage and the nature of appropriate responses. Parties must further define this concept and determine how to better support countries affected by climate change. Of particular concern are approaches to addressing issues such as insurance and risk transfer programmes and integrated approaches to avoiding reducing and addressing climate-related displacement. Strengthening cooperation between agencies inside and outside the UNFCCC will be key to advancing this agenda.

(IV) Finance: the funding targets set out in the Paris Agreement convey a clear message of shifting financial flows from actions that contribute to climate change to zero emissions and climate adaptation capacity development. While developed countries must continue to take the lead in providing financial support developing countries are now encouraged to provide financial support on a voluntary basis. However parties will need to provide more details on how to track the use of funds expand the size of funds and report to donors and recipients. This will include details of the target of mobilizing $100 billion per year to ensure adaptation to the increase in funding share and to redefine funding targets in the light of future needs.

(v) Technology development and transfer: in the Paris Agreement, the parties agreed that the existing technical mechanism would continue to apply to the Paris Agreement and established a new framework to guide the activities of the mechanism. Parties must address the nature of this new framework and clarify the details of the expansion of the mechanism and how it will be supported. In particular parties should clarify how financial and technical mechanisms would work together to support technology development and transfer in developing countries and to identify linkages between the two mechanisms on the basis of existing efforts.

(VI) capacity-building: in the Paris Agreement, parties committed themselves to strengthening capacity-building activities and established the Paris capacity-Building Committee (Paris Committee on Capacity Building,PCCB) to address current and future capacity gaps and needs of developing countries. Parties first need to agree on the modus operandi and scope of mandated investigations adopted by PCCB and provide a clear road map for their activities to support the review of international institutional arrangements in 2019. At the 22nd meeting of the parties to the UNFCCC (COP22), parties will have the opportunity to review and strengthen UNFCCC's work plans on climate change education, training and public awareness. This review process should be used to strengthen local capacity-building. This requires specific commitments to increase support for capacity-building in developing countries and to help them build appropriate domestic conditions for action.

(VII) Transparency in action and support: transparency and accountability are the pillars of UNFCCC, and the aspects of robustness, frequency, depth and scope have been significantly enhanced in the Paris Agreement. Previous differences between developed and developing countries will be transformed into systems of transparency and accountability and will be guided by accounting methods reporting guidelines and verification processes applicable to all countries. However, the Paris Agreement also provides "inherent flexibility" for developing countries that need to examine their capabilities, and parties will need to agree on how to define that flexibility. There is a particular need for enhanced action in improving tracking monitoring and evaluation of adaptation efforts and the provision / receipt of support. Ensuring adequate support-especially capacity-building in developing countries-will also be an important condition for the successful implementation of these requirements. Given the complexity of this issue, there is a need for a clear work plan on COP22 in order to adopt the necessary guidelines and models by 2018.

(VIII) Global stocktaking: in order to strengthen the commitment of parties to climate action and support, the Paris Agreement and the corresponding COP resolutions establish a collective mechanism for countries to reflect current implementation status and support future actions. The mechanism will begin with a promotional dialogue in 2018 and then continue to conduct global stocktaking every five years from 2023. The operational details of the stocktaking process are still open to question, including how inputs and outputs can be used to further boost action ambitions. Parties shall ensure that these mechanisms provide opportunities for suspending and implementing stocktaking, identifying defects, reflecting the latest science, using new technologies and best practices, and ultimately promoting more cooperation. Existing experience in the UNFCCC internal and external review process will help to design more effective patterns.

(IX) Compliance: the Paris Agreement established a new mechanism to form a committee of experts to promote implementation and implementation. Nevertheless, much work remains to be determined before the Commission becomes operational. In particular, parties will need to further clarify the scope of issues that the Committee should address, the types of facilitation measures to be taken, and its potential links to the transparency framework and the global stocktaking mechanism, while ensuring that the Committee has the authority and capacity to support States in fulfilling their Paris Agreement obligations.

(X) modalities of cooperation: the Paris Agreement recognizes that some parties will cooperate on the implementation of their climate actions through market and non-market plans, as well as through other cooperation arrangements. Parties agreed to promote sustainable development and environmental integrity in these approaches and would need to clarify how such cooperation would be managed and evaluated. Accounting standards will need to be developed to monitor transfers of emission reductions between parties in order to avoid double counting, a mechanism that contributes to mitigation and sustainable development, and a framework for non-market approaches that will need to be elaborated.