Raising Ambition in Areas of Urbanization and Land Use Key Focus of Meeting
The next round of UN climate talks starts in Bonn on June 4, this time with the presence of ministers who will discuss key political issues which can be resolved ahead of a successful, new and universal climate agreement in Paris next year. Government negotiators will continue their dual task to design the 2015 agreement and to find ways to raise the current level of global ambition to address climate change before 2020, when the new agreement is to enter into force.
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said: “Around the world, many countries, businesses, cities, investors and consumers are taking positive action on climate change. Governments are also now working on their national contributions towards a new agreement in 2015”. “The focus is to raise this groundswell into a global transformation to the low-carbon, climate-resilient future that is our only credible response to the climate change challenge and the opportunity for a safer, more secure and prosperous world,” she said.
That challenge has been underlined by the World Meteorological Organization. It has reported that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, the major greenhouse gas which forces temperatures higher over time, crossed a new threshold in April this year hitting 400 parts per million across the entire northern hemisphere for the first time in human history. “Nations are still on a path that would spiral global average temperatures well past the below 2 degrees Celsius rise agreed by governments as a limit. The Paris agreement must put in place the paths and the confidence that greenhouse gas emissions peak early and then decisively decline to the point where we can realize a carbon neutral global economy in the second half of the century,” said Ms. Figueres.
The Agendas at the Bonn Meeting
Ministers will discuss high-level political aspects of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), the body tasked to raise global ambition and design the new agreement. These will include the nature of the nationally determined contributions for the Paris 2015 agreement and the necessary level of ambition before 2020. They will discuss full implementation of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2CP KP), which underpins trust in the will of developed countries to commit to and increase their binding targets to reduce emissions. Ministers will also consider the recently published reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assess the latest climate science from across the globe and underpin the scale and speed of the decisions required to address climate change. The ADP itself will push forward with the collective construction of a draft text of the 2015 agreement, including establishing its elements and structure.
The session is also the annual meeting of the two subsidiary technical bodies of the UNFCCC, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), which tackle detailed issues and decisions on the technical, scientific and implementation aspects which provide the foundations on which the ADP is constructing the agreement.
Policies and Actions to Raise Ambition
The ADP will continue its work to consider practical policies and actions that further incentivize efforts to reduce or limit emissions and adapt to existing climate impacts. Technical Expert Meetings during this session will concentrate on the potential of cities and urban environments as well as land use, including forests and agriculture. In addition, a forum for cities in the second week of the meeting will look at climate policy that safeguards their future. Many cities have made much progress in turning their urban centres from being some of the biggest global sources of emissions towards being the best and brightest centres of solutions to climate change. These meetings follow similar Technical Expert Meetings on renewable energy and energy efficiency that the ADP held in March this year.
Opening Press Conference and Small Island Developing States (SIDS)
The opening UNFCCC press conference, attended by Christiana Figueres and Ministers from Small Island Developing States (SIDS), will be on June 5 at 10:00 a.m. CEST. June 5 also happens to be World Environment Day in a year designated by the UN as the International Year of the SIDS. The briefing will sum up both expectations for the Bonn meeting and the particular vulnerability of SIDS to climate change, highlighting the urgent need to reach a successful Paris agreement to meet the equally urgent needs of these threatened nations. The press conference will also profile the key findings of the latest United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on SIDS, as they relate to the climate change challenge.
Virtual Participation: Accessing Webcasts and Multimedia Content
Links to live and on-demand webcasts and multimedia coverage will be posted on the official conference website at <http://unfccc.int>. In addition, the secretariat offers a mobile version of the UNFCCC website <mobile.unfccc.int>, and the official iPhone and iPad application, „Negotiator”. Social media community tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr enable virtual participation in the conference in Bonn. The main Twitter hashtags for the meeting are #SB40 and #ADP2014. Media representatives watching via webcast can put questions via Twitter before and during UNFCCC press briefings using the hashtag #FCCCPress.
All links can be found at <http://unfccc.int> and include:
@UN_ClimateTalks, the UNFCCC secretariat Twitter account
@CFigueres, the Twitter account of UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres
Facebook: <www.facebook.com/UNclimatechange>
YouTube: <www.youtube.com/climateconference>
Flickr: <www.flickr.com/photos/unfccc>
About the UNFCCC
With 196 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 192 of the UNFCCC Parties. For the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. In Doha in 2012, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol adopted an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, which establishes the second commitment period under the Protocol. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
Read the release on the UNFCCC website
Source: UNFCCC press release from 02.06.2014Raising Ambition in Areas of Urbanization and Land Use Key Focus of Meeting
The next round of UN climate talks starts in Bonn on June 4, this time with the presence of ministers who will discuss key political issues which can be resolved ahead of a successful, new and universal climate agreement in Paris next year. Government negotiators will continue their dual task to design the 2015 agreement and to find ways to raise the current level of global ambition to address climate change before 2020, when the new agreement is to enter into force.
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said: “Around the world, many countries, businesses, cities, investors and consumers are taking positive action on climate change. Governments are also now working on their national contributions towards a new agreement in 2015”. “The focus is to raise this groundswell into a global transformation to the low-carbon, climate-resilient future that is our only credible response to the climate change challenge and the opportunity for a safer, more secure and prosperous world,” she said.
That challenge has been underlined by the World Meteorological Organization. It has reported that carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, the major greenhouse gas which forces temperatures higher over time, crossed a new threshold in April this year hitting 400 parts per million across the entire northern hemisphere for the first time in human history. “Nations are still on a path that would spiral global average temperatures well past the below 2 degrees Celsius rise agreed by governments as a limit. The Paris agreement must put in place the paths and the confidence that greenhouse gas emissions peak early and then decisively decline to the point where we can realize a carbon neutral global economy in the second half of the century,” said Ms. Figueres.
The Agendas at the Bonn Meeting
Ministers will discuss high-level political aspects of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), the body tasked to raise global ambition and design the new agreement. These will include the nature of the nationally determined contributions for the Paris 2015 agreement and the necessary level of ambition before 2020. They will discuss full implementation of the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2CP KP), which underpins trust in the will of developed countries to commit to and increase their binding targets to reduce emissions. Ministers will also consider the recently published reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assess the latest climate science from across the globe and underpin the scale and speed of the decisions required to address climate change. The ADP itself will push forward with the collective construction of a draft text of the 2015 agreement, including establishing its elements and structure.
The session is also the annual meeting of the two subsidiary technical bodies of the UNFCCC, the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), which tackle detailed issues and decisions on the technical, scientific and implementation aspects which provide the foundations on which the ADP is constructing the agreement.
Policies and Actions to Raise Ambition
The ADP will continue its work to consider practical policies and actions that further incentivize efforts to reduce or limit emissions and adapt to existing climate impacts. Technical Expert Meetings during this session will concentrate on the potential of cities and urban environments as well as land use, including forests and agriculture. In addition, a forum for cities in the second week of the meeting will look at climate policy that safeguards their future. Many cities have made much progress in turning their urban centres from being some of the biggest global sources of emissions towards being the best and brightest centres of solutions to climate change. These meetings follow similar Technical Expert Meetings on renewable energy and energy efficiency that the ADP held in March this year.
Opening Press Conference and Small Island Developing States (SIDS)
The opening UNFCCC press conference, attended by Christiana Figueres and Ministers from Small Island Developing States (SIDS), will be on June 5 at 10:00 a.m. CEST. June 5 also happens to be World Environment Day in a year designated by the UN as the International Year of the SIDS. The briefing will sum up both expectations for the Bonn meeting and the particular vulnerability of SIDS to climate change, highlighting the urgent need to reach a successful Paris agreement to meet the equally urgent needs of these threatened nations. The press conference will also profile the key findings of the latest United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on SIDS, as they relate to the climate change challenge.
Virtual Participation: Accessing Webcasts and Multimedia Content
Links to live and on-demand webcasts and multimedia coverage will be posted on the official conference website at < http://unfccc.int>. In addition, the secretariat offers a mobile version of the UNFCCC website < mobile.unfccc.int>, and the official iPhone and iPad application, „Negotiator”. Social media community tools such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr enable virtual participation in the conference in Bonn. The main Twitter hashtags for the meeting are #SB40 and #ADP2014. Media representatives watching via webcast can put questions via Twitter before and during UNFCCC press briefings using the hashtag #FCCCPress.
All links can be found at < http://unfccc.int> and include:
@UN_ClimateTalks, the UNFCCC secretariat Twitter account
@CFigueres, the Twitter account of UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres
Facebook: < www.facebook.com/UNclimatechange>
YouTube: < www.youtube.com/climateconference>
Flickr: < www.flickr.com/photos/unfccc>
About the UNFCCC
With 196 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol has been ratified by 192 of the UNFCCC Parties. For the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, 37 States, consisting of highly industrialized countries and countries undergoing the process of transition to a market economy, have legally binding emission limitation and reduction commitments. In Doha in 2012, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol adopted an amendment to the Kyoto Protocol, which establishes the second commitment period under the Protocol. The ultimate objective of both treaties is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system.
Read the release on the UNFCCC website
Source: UNFCCC press release from 02.06.2014