The UN Climate talks in Bonn, Germany has ended after rounds of tense negotiations that started on Friday night into yesterday morning.
Negotiators, ministers and diplomats worked tirelessly to come to a common agreement over climate finance –mainly the Adaptation Fund – which has stalled the talks for hours.
The draft decision paper, released after 7am, when negotiations officially ended and the COP meeting closed, was agreed to by all the 196 countries.
It calls for a high-level ministerial meeting to take place at COP24 that will focus on climate finance.
The paper confirms that steady progress has been made towards the development of the Paris Agreement work programme – or ‘rulebook’ – that is scheduled to be finalised next December at the COP24 Summit in Poland.
The rulebook is the technical process through which countries agree to implement their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) towards the overall Paris Agreement targets.
The draft decision also requests the UNFCCC to “develop an online platform that will provide an overview” of progress on the rulebook.
The parties have also agreed that an additional Paris Agreement negotiating session be held sometime between May and December next year.
As well, the decision paper officially endorses and launches the ‘Talanoa dialogue’ process, which was also one of the main topics of the negotiations.
The Talanoa Dialogue will start in January 2018 and run until COP24 next year and is aimed at taking stock of climate action that will take place ahead of 2020.
Further progress has also been made on how countries should measure and assess their progress on national emissions reduction ahead of the Paris Agreement officially entering into force in 2020.
Specifically, countries have agreed to a stock-take of greenhouse gas progress next year and should submit information on this by 1 May 2018.
A further stock-take is also earmarked for 2019’s summit, which will take place in Brazil.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister and COP23 President Voreqe Bainimarama closed the meeting yesterday.
