The Bonn Climate Change Conference to pave the way to a successful COP24

BONN, 8 May 2018 – The Bonn Climate Change Conference opened on 30 April and will continue until 10 May 2018. During this conference, three bodies will convene: the 48th sessions of the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) and Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA 48), and the fifth part of the first session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA 1_5). While the agenda of the three bodies covers a range of important issues, this meeting will focus on the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) and a set of decisions re-quired to operationalize the Paris Agreement. This work is to be completed at the Ka-towice Climate Change Conference in December 2018. Good technical progress will be required in Bonn to achieve this objective. Indeed, the Paris Agreement is entering a critical phase in the last half of this year. The outcomes of COP24 in Katowice, Poland in December will signal whether or not the Paris Agreement is on track to be implemented, and will live up to its promise to channel and scale up global efforts to close the emissions gap; build resilience; and keep open the possibility of limiting warming to 1.5°C. For WWF, progress in three areas are critical to put the world on the right trajectory: Accelerated action in Pre-2020, raising ambition of NDCs by 2020, and the 5-year am-bition cycle or ambition. mechanism. The Conference is now Midway through the two weeks of talks that must pave the way to two primary outcomes by COP24:
1. Agreement on a Rulebook or “implementation guidelines” for the Paris Agree-ment. Countries are still far apart of many issues like differentiation, and are still working on the basis of long “informal notes” which must transition to a proper negotiating text soon in order to allow clarity on what issues need input from Ministers at upcoming high-level fora, getting clarity on sticky issues and finding solutions.
2. A strong signal, building on the Talanoa Dialogue, that countries should review their NDCs and where possible improve their ambition by 2020. This can be expressed through the reports from the Talanoa Dialogue, as well as the COP decisions and political declarations. This signal from COP24 will feed into the UN Secretary General’s Climate Summit in September 2019 and a range of other high-level processes next year. Both outcomes are essential for a successful COP24, and for the implementation of the Paris agreement in a way that closes the emissions gap to hold warming to 1.5°C.
Another area that is essential to both of the above outcomes is finance and support for develop-ing country implementation – both for the conditional components of current NDCs, and for more ambitious targets and actions by developing countries that can be included in revised NDCs. This is very challenging. Developed countries must provide clarity on how they are going to deliver on their commitment to scale up finance to $100 billion by 2020. It would be very useful for devel-oped countries to signal by COP24 their ambition for the next replenishment of the GCF, which will almost certainly be triggered this year. The GCF`s project pipeline is growing and developing countries are expecting an increased level of funding to match the demand. The scale for this re-plenishment should be well above the initial level of $10.8 billion. But this will be challenging be-cause the USA is unlikely to contribute. It will be useful for high level fora like the G7 and G20 to address the issue of climate finance and GCF replenishment. WWF is represented by around 12 participants over the two weeks of the Bonn sessions. The team is working hard to identify ways to match finance and support with ambitious actions, and engag-ing with negotiators from many countries and leading efforts in several areas to find common po-sitions among civil society, especially in the Climate Action Network (CAN).

For further information, contact Mandy Jean Woods mwoods@wwfint.org and Dandy Yela DYela@wwfdrc.org