At COP 17 in Durban, countries defined a new market-based mechanism to promote cost-effective mitigation actions, guided by a set of principles previously agreed at COP 16. These principles include “stimulating mitigation across broad segments of the economy”, “ensuring a net decrease...

Common Tabular Formats (CTFs) for the reporting of information necessary to track progress towards Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under Article 4 of the Paris Agreement, including on the use of cooperative approaches, are to be adopted by COP26. This paper explores concrete examples...

Adaptation monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is an important step of the process of adapting to climate change, by enabling Parties to learn from climate risks and the effectiveness of adaptation measures, and increase accountability. While relatively few countries have designed and implemented a...

The term low-emission development strategies (LEDS) first emerged under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2008 and its possible role in a future climate framework continues to be debated. Though no formally agreed definition exists, LEDS are generally used to...

Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are currently developing the operational elements of the Paris Agreement, including guidance for information to facilitate clarity, transparency and understanding (CTU) when Parties communicate their nationally determined...

Decision 1/CP.21 adopting the Paris Agreement established a mandate for a facilitative dialogue to be convened among Parties in 2018. This mandate established two main objectives of the 2018 facilitative dialogue (FD2018): to take stock of collective progress made towards long-term climate goals...

The Paris Agreement and its accompanying decision call for Parties to strive to formulate mid-century communicate long-term low-greenhouse gas emission development strategies (LT-LEDS) by 2020. Moreover, the Paris decision requests Parties to communicate a new or updated Nationally Determined...

The Cancun Agreements outlined the list of topics to be included in biennial reports and indicated that guidelines for them were to be developed, but provided limited guidance on their structure and content. This paper proposes a structure for biennial reports for both developed and developing...

Limiting the increase in global average temperature to below 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels will require ambitious mitigation action by a broad range of actors including Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), i.e., national governments, and...

The Modalities, Procedures and Guidelines (MPGs) included in Decision 18/CMA.1 adopted at COP24 in 2018 require all Parties to the Paris Agreement to report national greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories using “common reporting tables” (CRTs). The same decision requests the Subsidiary Body for...