Central to the livelihoods of the majority of communities in Uganda, agriculture is vital for employment, food, and income, and is the backbone of Uganda’s economy – a heavy dependence which puts millions at risk with increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather due to climate change making the agricultural sector highly vulnerable.

Losses caused by drought or disease, for instance, can have a devastating impact on whole communities, and feeding a growing population without further depleting reserves of soil or water is a huge challenge. Identifying practices best able to respond to the effects of climate change and increasing adaptive capacity to ensure food and income security, Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) practices and Climate Smart Village (CSV) approaches increase sustainability, productivity and resilience to help overcome climate adversity. Low-cost and achievable at large-scale through the integrated management of water, land and ecosystems, decoupling agriculture and energy generation and land degradation / deforestation, providing co-benefits for GHG mitigation by reducing, and sequestering, emissions, CSA / CSV projects are proving that change - for the better - is possible.

Key to unlocking facilitative finance is ensuring climate change is incorporated into development planning, and implemented within the context of wider international policies as well as the national policy context. Attending COP25 in Madrid, one of our partners in Uganda, Nasaasira Ambrose, from local NGO SICDO (Sheema Integrated Community Development Organization) said "Climate action and finance is a serious matter requiring a sound understanding of developing transformational projects by the ‘rulebook’, which many traditional development NGOs in the South lack to enable them to unleash the huge climate action potential of rural communities."

Working with five local development NGOs in Uganda, with financial assistance from BMZ to implement the climate development agenda under Germany’s Marshall Plan with Africa, priority areas including agriculture, rural development and food security assessed in the initial three-year pilot project are now being followed up and developed, centring around the theme of Climate Smart Villages (CSV). Taking a programmatic approach, building - from the bottom up - off the back of lessons learned from improved cooking stoves, solar lighting, and water and soil management systems, amongst others, appropriate village-based practices for scaling-up are being prioritised. In parallel, hands-on, practical guidance is being developed tailored to the needs of organizations working at the grassroots level in villages to train extensionists and facilitators working with and in rural communities, and to help with getting the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) implementation off the ground.

Also focusing on clean energy and energy efficiency, as well as taking development issues such as water and sanitation into account, good-practice climate action methodologies are being mainstreamed into development work through a powerful village-based approach. Engaging and working with farmers and villagers in rural communities on participatory planning, development, and implementation, as well as monitoring and evaluation, and so learning, grassroots development action has proven to be a hugely effective approach, and is at the heart of partner activities in their work with communities - inclusiveness being key to engagement, and so success.

Striving for coherence and complementarity between climate smart activities and sustainable development and the achievement of the SDGs, the resilience embedded through sustainable practices is reducing the ecological footprint of rural communities, and so contributing to biodiversity conservation and avoidance of further land degradation as well. Indeed, the mainstreaming of climate change and action into rural and agricultural sectors is consolidating synergies between once differentiated imperatives and responsibilities, and driving a move away from conventional grant-based 'finance' and a charity mindset (and motive) towards a measurable, monitorable valuation of (and, ultimately, for) ecosystem services, and innovative and private sector finance for Nature-Based Solutions (NBS).

Looking forward, collaborative approaches and partnerships between the North and the South, with international support and expertise, and knowledge transfer - in both directions - when aiming at blending and new climate finance sources and related requirements, are going beyond traditional development aid funding cycles and approaches. But the integration of good-practice climate smart activities into the organizations and operations of the development agents themselves takes time. Aiming at transformational change over a decade or more requires lead times of several years and a phased approach – using an initial phase for preparing for the real upscaling, and building the foundations to do so. Results-based management and finance, including working as consortia with a view to covering larger areas and broadening sectoral scopes towards delivering greater climate action and development impacts, is both the challenge and the way forward.

After visiting local partner organizations again in October to discuss the design of the new programme, and facilitation of related workshops and training, Robert Tippmann, Director of Climatekos gGmbH, said "Working with experienced local development organizations on the ground, applying village development approaches and integrating them with good-practice and cutting-edge climate action strategies and measures should and must enable local actors to unleash the adaptation and mitigation potentials, upscaling a programmatic approach providing a strong foundation for accessing and leveraging the finance required.”

Climatekos gGmbH is an independent social enterprise in the field of environment and development focusing on international climate protection.

By Chloe Mcenery Beacham

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a new wall is being created that unites, not divides - the Great Green Wall. An African Union initiative to combat the depredations of desertification of the Sahara and Sahel region, the 15km wide ‘barrier’ of land being restored from Senegal to Djibouti is helping transform the lives of millions of people, and ecosystems, on the frontlines of climate change.

Source: John Kappler, National Geographic

The landscape restoration project has evolved well beyond the initial objective of halting expansion of the Sahara to combat degradation, desertification and drought. Working with international partners including UNCCD, FAO and IUCN it has grown into an Africa-wide flagship initiative to regreen the Sahara’s southern border, supporting indigenous land management practices to engage innovative interventions, strengthening rural livelihoods, ecosystems and community resilience. Yet it is its African ownership which is the driving force behind this unique transboundary initiative; its foundations based not on international funding but truly grass roots initiatives.

Land around the Sahel is badly degraded - only 20% isn’t - with over 30 million people facing food and water insecurity, and, increasingly, conflict and migration. Restoring health to the Sahel’s ecosystems bringing food security, sustainability and stability, the Great Green Wall (GGW) is building resilience into the communities living here. Using native knowledge and species of trees, shrubs and grasses adapted to local - often hostile - conditions, low-cost land restoration activities are simultaneously helping communities adapt to and mitigate against climate change, providing a vital corridor for biodiversity and the strongest defence against increasing environmental degradation, instability and adversity.

Officially initiated in 2007, over a decade in and the achievements of the project are attracting renewed interest. Senegal, for example, where 12 million drought resistant trees have been planted in less than a decade, or Ethiopia, with 15 million hectares of degraded land restored. Stocktaking efforts to assess outcomes are consequently underway, and Climatekos gGmbH has been asked to conduct a comprehensive assessment of implementation and impacts of the Great Green Wall to date, and what is still needed to meet the 2030 vision of 100m ha of restored land, engaging member states on a stakeholder assessment of the myriad micro-projects making up the initiative. Attending the 5th Regional Steering Committee meeting of the Great Green Wall of the Sahara and Sahel Initiative, Dakar, November 19-21, Climatekos consultants Sabine Henders and Louis Perroy met with stakeholders to present objectives of the report and the data collection methodology, and in addition gain a first picture of the status of the initiative, as well as obstacles to developing and coordinating activities.

Collecting success stories from 11+ countries accounting for land restoration progress, identifying challenges faced as well as financial resources pledged and disbursed, findings are feeding into recommendations for a roadmap to implement the 2030 vision. Amassed data assessing regional impacts and alignment with national priorities (such as agriculture policies or NDCs) of the countries involved will guide and drive forward defined criteria - environmental, social, and financial - assessing the impact in terms of climate change mitigation and adaptation (carbon sequestration through tree planting, increased resilience in communities through improved water access and soil properties), and in how far the GGW has contributed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The stocktake aims to paint a clear picture of the initiative’s achievements, which can help support GGW countries in the mobilization of additional funding from public and private donors.

Given the geographical spread (the report scope covers the original 11 Sahel countries involved, although the broader initiative has now taken root in 20 countries across Africa) assessment is challenging. A harmonized strategy providing guiding principles and objectives is used as a basis, though (as ever…) the lack of a common reporting system or monitoring mechanism is problematic. Yet the co-benefits of sustainable land management, maintaining and enhancing carbon sinks simultaneously contributing towards emissions reduction goals is generating both specific, immediate benefits to communities through adaptation, generating socio-economic benefits, halting biodiversity loss, and long-term, global benefits to livelihoods and entire ecosystems through land restoration and climate change mitigation. Local knowledge, working with modern technology, is deepening, broadening and strengthening resilience, reclaiming and, ultimately, gaining ground in the struggle against climate change.

As Sabine Henders said after the event in Dakar, “we are seeing that land degradation is not irreversible - the project is growing and sowing hope and fruit; we must help nurture the roots”.

Climatekos gGmbH is an independent social enterprise in the field of environment and development focusing on international climate protection.

As the Parties gathered at the COP24 summit in Katowice agreed on its final outcomes, they also passed the credibility test for their actual willingness to meet the Paris Agreement’s targets. As expected, the summit was difficult, and emotional, and longer than officially stated in the calendar. With nearly 30,000 participants logistics played an important, and successful, role. All in all, it would be fair to say that COP24 will be listed as a significant achievement in the history of global climate change negotiations. It would also, however, be fair to say that after this COP there will be a significant amount to do on the ground, that’s for sure.

The successes

COP24/CMA1 had two major tasks to fulfill: the adoption of the implementing rules for the Paris Agreement Work Programme (the PAWP/Katowice rulebook), and the conclusion of the Talanoa Dialogue - a stocktake of global efforts in fighting climate change conducted at ministerial level.

Adoption of the rulebook required an enormous amount of highly detailed work. In the end, negotiators agreed on a set of rules governing, inter alia, the new reporting rules under the Paris Agreement (PA). These will form the new transparency framework starting in 2024, and encompass mitigation, adaptation and finance. The information will be gathered from all Parties - as opposed to the pre-Paris arrangements where only developed countries were obliged to report. It will allow for tracking of progress towards the achievement of the PA goals. Thanks to the two public registries also agreed upon in Katowice, data on all Parties’ efforts will be available to everybody and easily comparable. Also thanks to agreement in Katowice countries’ climate plans, the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), will be much more uniform and evenly structured.

To many countries, agreeing to these new obligations in Katowice was difficult because currently they simply lack the capacity to gather the data and prepare the reports. Knowing this, they could only agree to embrace these new commitments if reliable, adequate financial support was offered by developed states. Even with this support, not all of them may be able to report as often, comprehensively, or in as much detail as required currently from the (developed) countries which have had these obligations since the 1990s. All this, and much more, was taken into account under the Katowice package.

On the finance side, many countries argued that they needed to know when the new, increased (from the current USD 100 billion annually) collective global financial goal was finally going to be discussed. This decision will need to be taken by 2025 at the latest. In Katowice it was agreed that this discussion will start soon enough, in 2020.

The completion of the Talanoa Dialogue marked the start of the first, though preparatory, cycle of review and ambition under the PA. Five years from now, in 2023 and every five years thereafter, the process of reviewing the progress made globally will be conducted under the global stocktake. The formal results of the Talanoa Dialogue were included in the non-negotiable declaration, 'The Talanoa Call for Action' of the two COP Presidents, Fijian and Polish.

The Talanoa Dialogue with ministerial and non-governmental participation in Katowice showed what the future global stocktake might look like. The rulebook set up clear guidelines on the preparatory process, the final event, and the sources of input into the discussion under the stocktake. After both the Dialogue and the stocktake, Parties are expected to reflect on their level of ambition in the preparation of their next NDCs. In the year following the 'stocktake COP', viz. 2019, 2024, 2029 (etc.), they can present their announcements on ambition at the UN Secretary General’s summit held on the margins of UN General Assembly.

Last but not least, the compliance system under the PA was operationalised. The Committee to facilitate its implementation and promote compliance was given clear guidance on its structure, manner, and scope of work.

The shortcomings

Two major disappointments were voiced by the summit’s participants. The first refers to the absence of a conclusive decision on the final shape of the new market mechanisms under the Agreement’s Article 6. Although substantial progress was made in this area, the discussion at COP24 never reached the stage of “finishing touches”, and got stuck on issues such as avoiding the so-called “double counting”, i.e. ensuring that reductions from one project aren’t used to show fulfillment of mitigation targets more than once. With many stakeholders being interested in starting carbon reducing projects, I hope this issue can be finalised at COP25 in Chile.

The second relates to the way in which Parties referred to the IPCC report on 1.5°C. The final, overarching COP24 decision is neither “welcoming” nor “noting with concern” the report and its recommendations, but only welcomes its “timely completion”. This reference was deemed weak and entirely insufficient by most governmental and non-governmental delegates. The fact is, for anything more to have been reflected in the decision’s text there would need to have been consensus, and there was none. Nevertheless, the reference acknowledges that the IPCC did deliver a report reflecting the best available science.

Other issues which were not finalised at COP24 include common metrics for calculations of greenhouse gases, and common timeframes for the targets presented in the NDCs. Many organisations also spoke of having neglected the issue of broadly defined human rights in the rulebook.

Yet another, bigger, issue is connected with the way the Polish government as a host interacted with civil society. Compared to other COP host cities, the summit’s venue was hardly surrounded by climate marches or demonstrations. One can suspect this was because of the rather inclement weather, but the reasons were of a different nature. Poland adopted a special act for the organisation of COP24 which forbade spontaneous gatherings and increased surveillance of all the summit’s participants. The one major march for climate, which was officially arranged for Saturday in between the negotiations period, was surrounded by the shocking news that over a dozen activists had been stopped at the Polish border. The official reasons for this action were not provided, although the UNFCCC Executive Secretary promised to investigate.

The Silesian coal-elephant

Speaking of shortcomings, this elephant wasn’t very discrete. From the miners’ band welcoming delegates on the second day of the summit and the Katowice pavilion clad in coal, to the briefing with the Polish President in which he promised not to abandon coal, one could not escape the feeling that the host government was very much missing, or dismissing, the - fundamental - point about coal and climate protection. Certainly, the low-emission transition will affect the mining industry and societies, and it is only right to secure the livelihoods of the people employed in the mining sector and to discuss how it is going to happen. However, the prominence - and prevalence - of displays ‘celebrating’ coal throughout the venue was highly unlikely to convince delegates that Poland is ambitious with regards to climate action and protection. On the contrary, it seemed to undermine the very purpose of the summit and its, increasingly urgent, calls for carbon emissions reductions - predominantly those from coal.

The Presidency and its tools

The COP24 President and his team had to engage on a variety of topics and levels, and use adequate tools. A kind of novelty in the process was the use of a head of delegations meetings format throughout the first and second week. Together with regular stocktake meetings, it allowed transparency of proceedings and trust of Parties to be secured and maintained. A good, and already proven, idea was to also employ pairs of ministers to lead on the negotiations of the most difficult issues in the second week. Another format, the so-called “Sejmik”, in honor of the 550th anniversary of the first meeting of the Polish Parliament, was arranged at the ministerial level in the second week. Although this sounded new and exciting it was not fully successful; in the second week it was still necessary to discuss very technical issues relating to the rulebook, and many ministers felt discouraged from participating in the Sejmik’s discussions, leaving them to their senior negotiators. I am glad that in the end this did not discourage Parties from finalising the rules altogether.

Apart from guiding the negotiating process, the COP24 Presidency also embarked on the promotion of three topics. The 'Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia Declaration’, adopted at the Leaders’ Summit on 3 December and noted in the COP decision, recognises the need to take into account the imperatives of a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs. The electromobility initiative was transformed into the 'Driving change together: Katowice Partnership for Electromobility' launched by the COP24 President in cooperation with the UK. It is expected to encourage development of zero-emission transport. Finally, the 'Forests for Climate' Ministerial Declaration, which despite raising some concern about the idea of substituting emission reduction measures with forest enhancement, was considered in the end a positive initiative by many Parties. All of these initiatives were presented quite late in the year, and are rather general as they aimed at securing the widest support possible. The forestry declaration for example, without specific targets or mechanisms, and encouraging “removals by sinks” offsetting emissions, not curbing them, was undoubtedly, regrettably, lacking ambition.

The unavoidable drama

Many expected that the main points of controversy would come from the negotiating position of the United States, but this was not the case.

The first great uncertainty, just about the day before the summit started, came from the Turkish side. Turkey came to COP24 armed with procedural and legal claims aimed at changing its place in the Annexes to the Climate Convention and formally become a developing country. Such a solution would allow it access to financial support for climate-related projects, and to some extent limit its obligations. Needless to say (other) developing countries, especially the least developed ones, were not amused by this idea. This translated into groups of countries (AILAC, Arab Group, Asia-Pacific) asking to be awarded a status recognising their “special needs and circumstances”. If these discussions had been allowed to start at COP24 no other discussion would have been concluded: mainly due to lack of time but also because of increasing political tensions. Fortunately, the COP24 Presidency managed to contain the problem. Turkey agreed to be consulted during the summit on the issue, and not have a formal discussion, while the other groups withdrew their claims.

The issue of Turkey returned once more just before the closing of the session, and together with last-minute consultations on market mechanisms with Brazil caused considerable delay in the closing of the summit. Yet all things considered, given the notorious complexity, difficulty, and delicacy of the negotiations, of compromise and conciliation, the COP24 Presidency’s assured interventions were demonstrably successful. Thanks to this the negotiating process could progress.

The second controversy came at the end of the second week during the discussion on the reference to the IPCC Special Report. “Welcoming” the report was not acceptable to Saudi Arabia, the US, Russia, or Kuwait, while the reference to only “take note” of it was fiercely opposed by the majority of Parties. Despite the efforts of the SBSTA Chair moderating the discussion, no acceptable-to-all formulation was found. Afterwards, many participants felt disappointed, and stepped into the second week of negotiations with a heavy heart. As explained above, no real solution to this problem had been found by the end of the summit.

Signs of hope

To finish on a positive note, however, it is worth stressing that no international agreement has the power to push countries into something they are not willing to implement. If the majority of Parties want to act according to the recommendations of the IPCC Special Report, there is nothing to stop them. For instance, the EU has already started its discussion on decarbonisation by 2050 and will continue it this year. I hope other countries will follow. Furthermore, the ambition issue, even if not fully addressed at COP24, will be back on the agenda in September at the UN Secretary General’s summit.

Meanwhile, the UNFCCC negotiations can focus on the unfinished business of the carbon market, and Parties can prepare themselves for their new challenges. Thanks to the Katowice rulebook all the post-2020 declarations on ambition will be fully accountable and internationally verifiable. This is something entirely new to this process, and I am glad to have seen how this new reality was born.

The overview schedule of the COP24 summit was published some time ago, but it is still evolving. A closer look at the last version from 9 November, along with the few annotated agendas, presents us with a better insight into the complexity and course of this year’s summit.

In September, after the Bangkok session, we found out that the COP will not start on 3 December as initially planned, but a day earlier, on Sunday. This solution is unprecedented in the history of the UNFCCC - or at least since 2007, when I first attended a climate summit. It is intended to provide a little more time for the actual negotiations on the implementation rules of the Paris Agreement work programme (PAWP/'rulebook').

All the bodies under the Convention - the supreme ones, COP, CMP, CMA, and the subsidiary ones, SBSTA, SBI and APA - will start with plenary meetings on 2 December. This is when the agendas for their work should be adopted and the new COP President elected; the nominee is the Undersecretary in the Polish Ministry of Environment, Michał Kurtyka. He will be authorised to lead the negotiations only after the agreement of all 197 UNFCCC Parties. The symbol for this leadership handover is the gavel which he will receive from the current Fijian COP23 President.

Other essential tasks to be performed during Sunday’s plenary sessions include, amongst others, organisation of work, and adoption of the draft Rules of Procedure (RoP). Some people may wonder why this is even important to mention; others may ask why the draft RoP would need to be considered again and again at each COP. The short answer is: they were never adopted, and since 1996, at each session Parties have agreed to continue to apply them for the negotiations, with the exception of rule 42 on voting. This is also why decisions in the UNFCCC process are taken by consensus (this term is explained in the Guide for Presiding Officers, pages 11-12).

The Leaders’ Day

Monday 3 December is the day on which over 50 Heads of States and Governments will come to COP24 in Katowice at the invitation of the Polish President, Andrzej Duda. This 'higher level segment' will focus on discussing the challenges of a 'just transition'. This issue is extremely important for Poland, and the coal-rich area of Silesia where COP24 is being hosted. It tries to answer the question of how to transform economies to enable a low-emissions future, while meaningfully supporting those societies whose well-being is dependent upon high-emitting sectors’ fossil fuels, such as coal. The Polish COP24 host has prepared a 'Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia Declaration' which will be signed on 3 December. On the same day the Leaders will also have the opportunity to present their national statements, and indicate the main points of their positions.

The negotiations agenda

From Tuesday 4 December onwards, the negotiations on the PAWP/rulebook will start in multiple negotiating sub-groups. Concurrently some of the issues from outside the scope of the PAWP/rulebook (such as the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform) will be discussed. On Saturday 8 December the technical part of the negotiations should be finalised. This is when the results of work on the fora of three subsidiary bodies (SBI, SBSTA, APA) should be handed over to the COP24 Presidency to decide how to further proceed with the negotiations. The first week will also see the finalisation of the technical part of the Talanoa Dialogue.

What’s not on the negotiations agenda?

Events - lots of them - in various formats, running throughout the two weeks. Worth mentioning: on Monday 3 December, simultaneous to the Leaders’ discussion, a workshop on agriculture, forum on the impact of the implementation of response measures, as well as the multilateral assessment are planned. Tuesday will start with a high-level event on the inclusion of the non-state actors under the Global Climate Change Agenda (GCAA). The Polish COP24 Presidency plans to use this forum to present its initiative on electro-mobility, which it intends to include in the UNFCCC process as part of its post-COP legacy. On the same day in the afternoon the IPCC Special Report on 1.5°C will be presented at a special event organised with one of the Convention’s subsidiary bodies, the SBSTA. On the Tuesday evening delegates will be able to meet and network during the host country reception, organised by the President of the city of Katowice.

Looking further ahead, we can see thematic days; Young and Future Generations Day (6.12), Gender Day (11.12) and Education Day (12.12), as well as events on the relationship between climate and: intergenerational inquiry; human settlements; industry; transport; water; oceans & coastal zones; energy; finance; SDG12 (Responsible Consumption and Production); SDG8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth); land use; fashion industry; resilience; water and energy; oceans & coastal zones and transport; sport; tourism, and health and food systems. The above list shows how much climate change is linked to other development issues and proves that the climate summit is not only about closed-doors negotiations. Traditionally, many state and non-state actors want to show their ideas and achievements at the side events, the list of which has already been provided by the UNFCCC Secretariat. Additional climate and environment-related discussions, conferences and events will be taking place outside of the conference centre in Katowice. It is worth noting that somewhere in between all these events, the Polish COP24 Presidency will present its much-anticipated Declaration on Forests, stressing the role of forests in reaching the ultimate aim of the Convention and the Paris Agreement.

The second week – the tough part…

Even though the actual high-level segment will be resumed only on Tuesday 11 December to hear the national statements of those ministers whose leaders had not attended on 3 December, many of the ministers will already be present at the COP24 venue on 10 December. On this day, two important high-level events will be organised: the pre-2020 stocktake in the morning, and the 3rd High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Finance in the afternoon.

Tuesday 11 December can also easily be named the “Talanoa Dialogue Day”: ministers will engage in discussions on how to best implement their existing, and enhance planned, climate goals. It remains to be seen to what extent Parties will take into account the findings of the recent IPCC 1.5°C Special Report, and if they will indeed be considered as a reference point for the shaping of future climate and energy policies. This political phase of the Talanoa Dialogue will finish a day later, on Wednesday 12 December. The two COP Presidencies - Fijian for COP23, and Polish for COP24 - will prepare a declaration summarising the message from the Talanoa Dialogue. It will be presented at the closing meeting on Wednesday afternoon. I remain hopeful that the results of the Talanoa Dialogue will be ambitious enough to show climate action non-believers that every country under the Paris Agreement is doing its part - as promised and ratified.

Concurrently, the negotiating process will enter into the second week’s ministerial ‘hot phase’. The issues from outside of the PAWP/rulebook negotiations should already have been finalised at COP and CMP plenary meetings on 12 December. Achieving this will require extraordinary engagement from Parties, the Presidency and the UNFCCC Secretariat because there is a limit as to how many negotiating bodies can meet at the same time. This obviously makes it more difficult to run discussions on multiple topics in parallel, and stems from the fact that not all delegations have enough experts to participate in all the meetings. Now, let us not forget, the ministers will also be there. My experience tells me that some of them will require personal assistance, which can in turn further limit delegates’ availability for actual negotiations. This happens often in small delegations.

To sum up, what we see in the second week is four overlapping layers of major COP activities: 1. The high-level meetings, including the Talanoa Dialogue on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday; 2. The resumption of the high-level segment on Tuesday; 3. The negotiation of the non-rulebook agenda points, and 4. The negotiation of the PAWP/rulebook.

Handling the rulebook

Information as to what needs to be done on the PAWP/rulebook in the second week will result from progress in the first week, and obviously we cannot really predict this. What we can safely assume, however, is that whatever is left for the second week will be fiercely debated before consensus is reached.

The question about the format of these discussions goes to the COP24 Presidency. There are quite a few options to choose from, including, amongst others: the Presidency can appoint its own representatives to lead some parts of the negotiations; it can ask the chairs of the subsidiary bodies for support, and/or ministers or prominent participants of the negotiations process can become facilitators at the request, and under the responsibility, of the Presidency. It may also be that if there are multiple issues still left to be decided upon, all the above formats may be used simultaneously.

The undoubted challenge here will be to secure and maintain the transparency of proceedings. What we have so far learned is that unless Parties know exactly where progress on the overall text of the PAWP/rulebook is coming from, they are not likely to adopt its final version. This is why it should not be very surprising if in the second week there are numerous calls for the so-called “stocktake meetings”. Their aim is to allow all Parties to understand where the whole negotiating process stands. Whilst these can be necessary and beneficial, at the same time they take - limited, and, moreover, already extended - time away from the actual negotiations, and make the whole process itself longer.

Meanwhile, the end of the summit, planned for 14 December, will be approaching at a terrifying speed.

The exhausting endgame

Usually at COPs, somewhere around the middle of the second week delegates realise that the progress achieved so far is not sufficient to finish the negotiations on time. This is when the night sessions start to try to address the timing problem. This year, due to the number of issues on the PAWP/rulebook agenda, these prolonged meetings may occur by the beginning of the second week, or even at the end of the first week. If this scenario is the case, then at the end of the second week the already tired negotiators, together with their ministers, may need to stay in the conference centre round the clock. Similar situations took place at COPs in Paris (2015), and before that in Durban (2011) and Copenhagen (2009). It may not seem like the most efficient way to run negotiations, but that is the reality of global climate summits.

The final puzzle

It is important to know that the UNFCCC process has an unwritten rule saying that “nothing is decided until everything’s decided”. This basically means that no negotiating item can actually be deemed closed until it is adopted (negotiators say “gaveled”) at the final plenary session. It results from the fact that each of the 197 Parties has power, and may want to keep leverage, over the adoption of individual issues. This is why the atmosphere of trust is important to keep the negotiations going. However, this trust is always limited; only when Parties see the whole, complex deal, can they assess if the compromises they have agreed to in one part of the negotiations truly pay off with satisfactory benefits in other, priority, areas.

Taking the above into consideration, for the negotiators the whole COP, and especially the second week, means constant re-checking of the whole negotiations landscape to see if their priorities are secured. If not, they can stop some part of negotiations to force more flexibility or support from other Parties with priority areas located in the blocked item. Thanks to this approach, the atmosphere in the second week can become extremely tense, stressful and exhausting - not only for the negotiators and the Presidency, but also the thousands of observers who do not necessarily understand why the various governments cannot agree on something as important as climate protection.

Finally, we come to the closing plenary. It will start only when the Presidency has managed to get sufficient confirmation from all Parties that they agree on the proposed solutions on all the negotiated items. The other, underestimated, issue is the requirement to have the decisions’ texts available in all six UN languages prior to adoption. Both take time, and both make all the exhausted participants of the COP wait many long hours for the beginning of the end. Let it be a happy one.

Roughly one month before the start of the next climate summit in Poland, Katowice, the incoming Polish COP24 Presidency organised a Pre-COP. This high-level political meeting is a traditional introduction to the climatic “hot” time of the year which ends with the last day of the summit. But there is more to the picture: apart from the IPCC’s 1.5°C Special Report, the streamlined parts of the negotiated rulebook text have already been published, and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) Board had its meeting. Let’s see what kind of new information about these elements we can squeeze into October’s picture.

The rulebook (aka Paris Agreement Work Programme)

On 15 October the Chairs of the respective bodies working on the development of the rulebook published a “joint reflection note” in which they suggested a way forward for the Katowice summit. It is fully justified to write about “suggestion” and not a firm intention on how to steer negotiations: in the UNFCCC Party-led process, the Chairs can do only as much as the Parties allow them to. So what do they say?

To start with, all the elements of the rulebook will be allocated the same negotiating time – and rightly so. UNFCCC negotiations experience clearly shows that an attempt to prioritise certain issues over others may end up in an “agenda fight” which can effectively prevent not only progress, but even the commencement of negotiations. At the same time, the Chairs are hinting at the possibility that in some cases, after COP24, more technical work may be needed which would imply not finalising the negotiations this year. They also point out that other issues, such as the Global Stocktake, could use the experience gathered during COP24 itself. This particular consideration can be read as relating to the facilitative Talanoa Dialogue. According to many participants, the approach to modalities and proceedings of the Dialogue, if successful, can later be replicated in 2023’s Global Stocktake. This will be the first official round of the Paris Agreement’s ambition mechanism which would aggregate the global achievements in mitigating climate change according to the new transparency rules, followed by the preparation for the next round of commitments to be embedded in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

Furthermore, all the options provided by Parties in the earlier course of the negotiations stay on the table. As already mentioned, only Parties can decide on any substantial changes to the negotiating process. Removing an option would be such a case. The solution proposed by Chairs was to add their textual suggestions in order to streamline and “bring all items to a comparable state of maturity and readiness” and hope that Parties would find them acceptable. If so, it would greatly speed up the negotiating process. Lastly, the final format of the rulebook will be decided only at COP24. There are two possible options: around a dozen separate decisions, or one long decision.

The Green Climate Fund

The last GCF Board meeting took place 17-20 October in Bahrain. Members of the Board were under a lot of pressure to succeed – primarily because any repetition of the failure of the last meeting would put into question the overall effectiveness of this relatively new institution (operationalised only in 2015). This would in turn lead to a decrease in Parties’ trust in the UNFCCC climate financing system, and could undermine efforts to adopt the rulebook in Katowice this December.

Fortunately, this time the GCF’s meeting was successful. The Board approved 19 new projects worth USD 1 billion, 16 new accredited entities, and launched the fund’s first replenishment. Moreover, the empty seat of the GCF’s Executive Director has been temporarily filled, while the decision on how to proceed with the election of the new Executive Director has also been made. All in all, it seems that the issue of ineffective functioning of the GCF will not be a major hurdle in the international climate talks this year. But what will?

The Pre-COP

Some hints at where the difficulties remain come from the agenda of the Pre-COP in Kraków, Poland, 22-24 October. With 40 countries represented at the ministerial level, the discussions focused on four areas: mitigation and adaptation (with particular attention drawn to the modalities around the NDCs), finance and transparency. Although the results of the discussions were not made publicly available, one can safely assume that the ministers were made aware of the extent to which compromises will need to be made by all to ensure that COP24 is a success. The views expressed by the participants at the Pre-COP show increased understanding of the magnitude of the task, but also some optimism that solutions can indeed be found.

As the summit’s general agenda shows, the ministers will step into negotiations in the second week of the COP. Traditionally, they would need to focus on the unsolved, and politically most difficult, decisions. However, if by that time agreement on various technical issues is not sufficiently advanced, it will be up to the ministers to take up the negotiations and decide. This, in all probability, would make both the national negotiators and their ministers uncomfortable and would require focused and effective progress, albeit unconsolidated, in the first week. To help prepare the ground, after the formal closure of the Pre-COP the Polish incoming COP Presidency organised a working meeting with the main negotiators to better facilitate agreement on the final shape of the rulebook.

The Pre-COP was preceded by the Non-Party Stakeholder Day on 21 October, Business Day on 22 October, followed by a Polish-Norwegian seminar on Just Transition – a topic of great significance for Poland as the host of the summit. It is worth noting that a declaration on Just Transition will be signed by Heads of States and Governments on the COP24 Leaders’ Day on 3 December.

All these events show how the preparations are speeding up but also how much remains to be done. November will bring the time for all the Parties to reflect on and coordinate their positions to come to Katowice well prepared. We remain hopeful that the positions will include a lot of flexibility to reach compromises – we will need this for COP24 to succeed.

On 9 October the European Union (EU) adopted its mandate for negotiations at the COP24*/CMP14/CMA1 climate summit in Katowice, Poland (COP24). This mandate takes the form of the so-called "ENVI Council conclusions" and contains political guidelines for all the EU Member States (MS) and the European Commission. These guidelines are to be followed by the EU at every step of the international negotiations - before and during the summit itself. But what does this actually mean and how will it function, and what was the crunch point of the talks?

The actors and the procedure

Responsibility for environmental issues, including climate policy, is shared between the EU MS and the EU, understood as a separate legal entity which is represented by the European Commission (see “shared competences”). This complicates understanding of the EU’s functioning and external representation for observers. However, in practice it means, inter alia, that the EU’s position must be agreed between Member States’ ministers responsible for environment and the Commissioners at a formal meeting: the Environment Council (ENVI Council).

The conclusions are drafted by the EU Presidency (currently Austria, rotating every 6 months) and discussed in relevant preparatory bodies in Brussels (working groups, meetings of Permanent Representatives Committee, COREPER). If the final text is not agreed after these discussions, the ministers need to find a solution at the Council itself. This is not necessarily easy as the ministers come to the Council with their governmentally approved instructions. Once adopted, however, the ENVI Council conclusions form a framework for the EU’s detailed position for the international climate change negotiations.

In cases where an issue is deemed extremely important, it is also possible for decisions on climate policy to be taken above the ENVI Council. This is the level of Heads of States and Governments who gather in the European Council and must take a unanimous decision (just like in the UNFCCC!). Such a case can be related to the issue of the adoption of new or revision of the EU’s current emissions reduction targets.

The context

The adoption of the conclusions came a day after the release of the IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C. It is to be considered by ministers at COP24’s Talanoa Dialogue - the high-level facilitative event which will summarize up-to-date efforts in climate change policy. The results of such discussions can in turn inform national decisions about the contents of the next round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), due in 2020. It’s worth noting that these decisions are not only about how and by how much to reduce emissions; many Parties included, for example, adaptation in their NDCs. The information on possible climate scenarios from the special report can help Parties better prepare their development strategies and related policies.

The EU conclusions are also adopted way ahead of the publication of the draft of its long-term strategy for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions. It is expected at the end of November, right before the start of COP24. It will not be adopted at that point, but will definitely start a discussion on the EU’s development pathways, including energy transition.

What can the EU do with all the above input in terms of its ambition? According to the Paris Agreement (PA), the EU, having already submitted its NDC for 2030, has two choices: by 2020 it can resubmit its “at least 40%” target, or update it. Since the PA does not allow for backsliding (submitting lower targets than previously), the updated target would need to be higher. A formal agreement on this could not have happened at the 9 October ENVI Council meeting - let’s see why.

The text

The most heated discussion during the ENVI Council was devoted to the possibility that the EU would signal readiness to review its target before 2020. It was hardly possible for the EU to agree to increase its reduction target and announce it at COP24. The last decision on what can and would be submitted at the international level in the EU’s NDC was agreed by the European Council in October 2014. Following this logic, changes to this target would need to be agreed at the same level and would require the unanimous decision of all MS. For that purpose, lengthy (around half a year) preparations on both technical and political levels would need to have been conducted.

So what does this part of the text (par. 23)actually say? It leaves the door open for the upward revision of the EU’s NDC but also leaves a lot of uncertainty as to how it would happen. The text states that such a possibility would need to take into account, or rather depend on, two issues:

Collective further efforts neededActions undertaken by all Parties to meet the objective of the Paris Agreement

Collective further efforts needed: this one’s rather easy. The understanding can come from the level of ambition embedded in Parties’ NDCs synthesized by the UNFCCC Secretariat, the information from the IPCC as presented in its special report on 1.5°C, and the results of the discussions in the Talanoa Dialogue.

Actions undertaken by all Parties to meet the objective of the Paris Agreement: this one’s tricky. The reference here can be understood as a need to assess both current and future ambitions, both declared and implemented by other Parties. Moreover, the modalities (e.g. form, forum, timeline) for such an assessment have not been specified. What is certain is that it would happen before 2020.

Apart from the above issues, the Council conclusions’ final text provides information on the EU’s approach to climate change within the framework of sustainable development and security. Also other issues such as circular economy, just transition, and other environmental actions are mentioned. The reference to the IPCC’s report is clear and shows the need to further reduce emissions and increase adaptation activities.

As a particularly vital message to the outside world, the conclusions describe what the EU is already doing domestically to implement the Paris Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol, and mention the upcoming EU internal discussion on the long-term strategy. The conclusions also clarify that the EU’s position on climate finance will be adopted during the meeting of finance ministers (Ecofin Council) on 6 November.

The usage

As mentioned before, the conclusions form a framework for the EU’s position. It wouldn’t, however, make sense for the negotiators to quote a general and political text during highly detailed discussions under the climate negotiations. There must be something more, and there is. The EU works all year round on the development of its detailed position and negotiating strategy which is included in the EU position paper. This document, produced by thematic groups of experts, is adopted by heads of delegations gathered at the EU Council’s Working Party on International Environmental Issues, Climate Change (WPIEI-CC). It is chaired by the EU Presidency and it is the same formation which meets every day during the international climate negotiations to discuss the EU’s position and strategy. The position paper is accompanied by even more detailed documents. None of the ideas presented in these documents and expressed internationally should go beyond what is written in the ENVI Council conclusions or, in some cases, European Council conclusions. Any doubts in that respect are discussed and settled at the WPIEI-CC meetings.

The presentation

The EU speaks with one voice. This means that once an EU position is adopted, only appointed individuals, i.e. the lead negotiators, would take the floor during the international negotiating meetings and speak on behalf of the EU and its 28 Member States. At the high level, to honour the shared competences requirement, speeches and statements are divided between the Minister representing the EU Presidency and the EU climate action Commissioner.

*To understand more about COP24 and the complexity of its negotiations please refer to the manual written by Lidia Wojtal for the Forum Energii. Access here.

Forum Energii is a Polish think tank forging the foundations of an effective, secure, clean and innovative energy system. All Forum Energii analyses may be copied and duplicated free of charge as long as the source and authors are indicated.

Three years after the Paris COP21 summit, the international community strives to prove that it can do more than just agree on new principles. This time it is about implementation and setting the rules for the new system applicable to all countries under the Paris Agreement (PA). Will it be possible at COP24* in Katowice? After the additional negotiating session in Bangkok Parties remain cautiously optimistic. Let us see why and whether we can support such optimism.

During the Bangkok session negotiators worked on all of the issues making up the 'rulebook', otherwise called the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP), which resulted in an impressive volume of 307 pages of compiled text. While maintaining balance in progress on all these issues was one of the most frequently reiterated requirements for the success of the climate summit in Katowice, many participants at the session agreed that there are two big issues which haven’t progressed that much.

The first is differentiation – understood as a need to accommodate various stages of current and future socio-economic development of Parties under the PA. The challenge here is not to go back to the developed-developing countries division from 1992 in all the areas covered by the PAWP/rulebook, but to try to ensure that the progressive character of the PA will be reflected in all the particular provisions implementing the agreement. This difficulty was most visible during the discussion on the countries’ climate plans – the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Across the negotiating table it basically means accepting new obligations by those countries which have not had them so far and/or enhancing those already existing. The extent to which these new commitments could become a burden will be determined in the detail of the decision or decisions to be taken in Katowice at the first meeting of the Paris Agreement’s supreme body, the CMA.

The other one is finance. Here the discussion is not simply about the “how much”. Following the 1992 division, developed country Parties are required to “provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention”, while developing countries can but, importantly, do not have to provide such support. But there is more to this picture. Increasing transparency of expected financial support, its mobilisation, ex-ante and ex-post reporting, targeted areas (mitigation, adaptation, capacity building, etc.) and beneficiaries, as well as timing and assessment, including during the five-yearly Global Stocktake of implementation, are only a few of the things which need to be discussed and finally agreed on – preferably this year at COP24.

Channeling of resources and access to finance add to the list. They are combined with the discussions on the role and efficiency of existing institutions under the Climate Convention, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. The newest of these institutions, the Green Climate Fund (GCF), has been under a lot of scrutiny recently after the US decided to withdraw its support worth USD 2 billion, and the fund’s director resigned at the last board meeting in July. The GCF also failed to agree on mandated issues.

Looking ahead, the next meeting of the current board will take place at the end of October 2018, and its new members are to be nominated by 30 September to start the GCF’s third term on 1 January 2019. For the success of COP24 in Poland, the negative atmosphere around the work, results, as well as elections to the GCF may be detrimental. Knowing that access to and viability of financial support coming from the fund is uncertain, many parties expecting such support may feel reluctant to accept new obligations under the negotiated rulebook. For COP24 it may mean slowing down or even blocking the negotiations in their entirety.

Taking this into account, one possible way to inspire progress before COP24 would be to ensure that the next GCF board meeting is effective, and that new projects are being adopted for implementation. A second, during the summit itself, the High-Level Ministerial Dialogue on Climate Finance, which is to take place in the second week of COP24, could be used to confirm the unwavering will of governments to fulfil their financial obligations. Finally, it is always encouraging to see new financial pledges on the table.

To sum up, after Bangkok we are now certain that differentiation and finance will be the two big elephants filling each negotiating room at COP24, regardless of the subject being discussed. Even without these, the adoption of the rulebook will be a challenging task. Judging from previous COP experiences, we can expect that agreement on these two issues, probably taken at the very end of the summit, will allow for the finalisation of other dependent matters.

Meanwhile, the negotiators in the first week of COP24 will need to do what they can to streamline the existing text into a draft decision or decisions. To help them, a proposal for a new version of what could become the draft rulebook text is expected to be published in October. We can’t wait to see it.

*To understand more about COP24 and the complexity of UNFCCC negotiations the author of this article Lidia Wojtal has written a manual for the Forum Energii** to explain the complexity of this process. Access here.

**Forum Energii is a Polish think tank forging the foundations of an effective, secure, clean and innovative energy system. All Forum Energii analyses may be copied and duplicated free of charge as long as the source and authors are indicated.

Climate change is reshaping the security landscape in many parts of the world, the climate-conflict nexus exacerbating enforced migration and contributing to instability - featuring heavily in one of the focus regions of Climatekos’ work in recent years, the MENA region, with a constant migration stream from MENA countries and parts of Africa pushing towards Europe. A recent UNDP report addressing resources and security in the Arab States - the planet’s most water-scarce, food-import-dependent, with the largest population of displaced people and rising levels of conflict - warns climate risks threaten development, and could cause a spike in ‘eco-migrants’, with July’s UN Global Compact for Migration further underscoring the need to integrate this ‘new reality’ into policy practice.

As security challenges are interlinked with climate change, so too are there linkages between migration and the Sustainable Development Goals, notably SDG 10.7, facilitating orderly, safe and responsible migration. Arab and other governments are incorporating climate action into their SDG efforts, and the WRI and GIZ are calling for closer alignment of SDGs and NDCs, advocating interlinking the advancement of the Paris Agreement and 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. With regards to implementing the Paris Agreement, supplementary climate change talks in preparation for COP24 were just held in Bangkok, with climate finance and how developed countries should report their contributions emerging as one of the crunch topics for the COP in Katowice at the end of the year.

Key to harnessing the synergies across the four distinct but interconnected agendas are the financial tools and mechanisms of the public, and private, sectors. Providing an enabling environment to accelerate the transition towards a sustainable economy, multi-stakeholder engagement and public-private partnerships can help leverage these synergies to ramp up implementation and join up action against the ‘threat multiplier’ of climate change, mainstreaming and scaling up mitigation and adaptation and thereby resilience.

In this context, the Union for the Mediterranean Secretariat (UFMS) and the EU commissioned a study analysing International public climate finance flows to the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries (2016), tracking flows to 15 countries including Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco - the top 3 recipients of climate finance comprising 75% of total commitments, viz. USD 6 billion. Whilst preliminary estimates for 2016 were published in December 2017 (Climatekos, 2017), the current update incorporates the latest data using best practice methodologies from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) database, the most complete single data source on climate finance to date tracking a wide range of bilateral and multilateral institutions.

Tracking climate finance flows is challenging; lack of standardised tracking methodologies, inconsistencies in publicly available records, and human and/or systematic error amongst other issues mean total aggregates are subject to uncertainties, with private climate finance and domestic expenditure rarely documented - problems also identified in the biennial UNFCCC Standing Committee on Finance (SCF) Assessment and Overview of Climate Finance Flowsproduced for COP22 in Marrakech, which had highlighted these issues. Nevertheless this analysis represents the move towards more standardised approaches, enabling dataset comparability and more robust, transparent reporting.

Looking ahead to COP24 in Katowice and the deadline to develop operational guidelines for the Paris Agreement, despite discord at the recent GCF meeting prompting questions about climate finance challenges, several multilateral development banks advanced their climate finance targets in July supporting mitigation and adaptation projects, and SDG-NDC nexus synergies are gaining momentum. Brexit’s destabilising effect on the EU, far-right nationalist parties gaining traction on immigration across Europe and the trade war looming with the US are headwinds against the cohesion and convergence of purpose and policy needed to address the growing challenges of a changing climate. Climatekos sees this work as a contribution towards a consolidated financial reporting framework facilitating coordinated tracking and MRV of climate action. However, can documented evidence of climate finance flows to adaptation, mitigation and increased resilience in the MENA region, intended to further socio-economic development based on climate action and green growth strategies, contribute to overcome the (eco)conflict-migration conundrum, or what (else) is missing?

Figure 1. International public climate finance flows to the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries - Updated results for 2016 (July 2018).

June has been an important month for oceans. The ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ theme of World Environment Day (WED) on 5 June shone a spotlight on the devastation caused by plastics in the oceans - an issue already firmly in the public consciousness with images of sea turtles entangled in discarded ‘ghost’ fishing nets or seabirds choked by plastic bags regularly appearing in the media. The announcement of WED host India to eliminate all single-use plastics in the country by 2022, as well as pledges made by other countries to ban plastic bags, are positive steps towards meeting the challenge.

However, at the G7 summit in Canada on 8-9 June UN Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted the destructive force of plastic pollution, declaring that despite commitments made at last year’s Ocean Conference the world now faces a “global emergency . . . [our] collective future and security is at stake”. Although not endorsed by the US, pledges made in the Charlevoix Blueprint for Healthy Oceans, Seas and Resilient Coastal Communities, and the Oceans Plastic Charter (adopted by Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the EU) produced at the summit demonstrated their determination to meet these commitments.

Covering 70% of our planet and supporting more than 350 million jobs through fishing, aquaculture and tourism, oceans are equivalent to the world’s 7th largest economy in terms of GDP. Yet through anthropogenic activities, from the over-exploitation of marine resources to destruction of marine and coastal habitats, the health of our oceans has drastically declined, and a decoupling of oceans-related socioeconomic development from environmental degradation is urgently required. Indeed people - and perhaps more importantly, investors - are increasingly waking up to the fact that, as forests are the lungs of the planet, oceans and rivers are its lifeblood. And as Green Finance emerged to combat deforestation and carbon emissions, the concept of the ‘Blue Economy’ (BE) has emerged to reverse oceanic degradation and foster the shift towards a new, ocean-based sustainable economy. It is hoped the BE will bring investment products and market-based solutions to help meet UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 ‘Life below water’, which seeks ‘to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources’.

Looking to provide solutions and a coherent approach to these pressing issues, the EU's Facility for Integrated Maritime Policy, BE and Climate Change (FacIMP/BE CC) commissioned Climatekos to produce a Handbook for practitioners to facilitate the preparation and assessment of applications for BE funding – drawing on our experience in financing climate action as the most advanced field in environmental finance. A step-by-step guide, the Handbook offers technical assistance to access financial instruments to leverage the investment necessary for a transition towards a BE. Facilitating integrated approaches to maritime and coastal affairs, it provides a toolkit to help catalyze financial flows to unlock the economic potential of the marine resources and economic activities around the Mediterranean, while still protecting valuable natural resources and ecosystem services this economic potential relies on.

Presenting the Handbook at a workshop on Marine Coastal Aquaculture (MCA) in Athens on June 18 - 21, Climatekos’ Partner Robert Tippmann said “The BE is an emerging concept, but the need for action is not. Providing benefits for current and future generations by restoring, protecting and maintaining the diversity and productivity of marine ecosystems, the Handbook aims to help practitioners achieve a triple bottom line of financial, social, and environmental returns.” Bringing 20 years of environmental and climate finance expertise and practical work experience in the Mediterranean and surrounding region to the table, Climatekos’ Handbook is expected to be published after the summer break

In 2018 Climatekos continues to provide guidance to public, private and civil society stakeholders in preparing effective funding applications, whilst ramping up its programme development services in partnership with others – (re)connecting our environmental and climate finance expertise with our project development experience. We begin the year with the preparation of two new guidebooks: A handbook on funding for blue economy projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, building on the climate finance handbook for the ClimaSouth project, and a guidebook developing the next generation of climate action projects or programmes to get Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) implementation off the ground.

The maritime economy, often referred to as the Blue Economy (BE) covers all marketable areas linked to the oceans, seas and coastal areas. The BE includes a wide variety of maritime sectors, including shipbuilding, maritime shipping, fisheries, aquaculture, mining of marine minerals, marine renewable energy and tourism. In the Mediterranean, over twenty different coastal states share a single maritime space, that comprises 30% of global sea-borne trade and a quarter of worldwide oil shipping. Bio-based industries drive multiple sectors in both the European Union (EU) and the Southern Mediterranean countries and provide livelihoods for large portions of the population. Over the next twenty years, investments in maritime shipping, offshore energy and tourism are expected to grow. The blue economy offers a means to unlock the economic potential of the Mediterranean maritime sector, while still protecting natural resources and ecosystem services. However, if such ventures are to reverse environmental degradation in the Mediterranean, investment must be channeled towards blue growth and sustainable activities - enabling governments to access financing for projects that are profitable, environmentally sustainable and that ensure long-term growth. Since 2012, the European Commission has been working on the growth of the BE, through the Integrated Maritime Policy for the Mediterranean (IMP-MED), whose objectives are to provide technical assistance to countries in the region for developing integrated approaches to maritime affairs. In response to a call for more information on how to access funding for blue economy projects from stakeholders in the Mediterranean, the Facility for Integrated Maritime Policy, BE and Climate Change (FacIMP/BE CC) requested Climatekos to develop a practical guidebook for financing BE projects. The guidebook will be another step-by-step guide to practitioners, focussing on the preparation and assessment of applications for blue economy funding.

Another guidebook will provide practical guidance for community-driven climate action, taking such guidance to the next level. This is about empowering rural communities and local development agents, such as CSOs and other expert organisations, developing complex climate action programmes at scale and contributing significantly to the implementation of NDCs. The opportunities to develop and finance adaptation and mitigation responses at the local levels to materialize national-level ambitions on the ground have become increasingly complex. Partnerships between local and international development experts and environmental finance experts are required to respond to these challenges. As part of its engagement in Uganda, Climatekos started to develop such new hands-on guidelines that will be introduced during workshops and trainings. The guidelines will be field tested by local development partners together with rural communities. Over the course of the next 3 years, this guidebook will be developed on the job, in conjunction with the implementation of demonstrations in a pilot project area, whilst training local experts to work with rural communities. In essence, this seeks to establish the technical foundations for scaling up and tapping into nationwide outreach mechanisms and networks of local development partners.

Climatekos was at COP23 in Bonn, and presented its study at the side event “Climate Finance and Energy Transition in the Mediterranean region". The presentation of the UfM Climate Finance Study was held at 11:30-13:00, in Bonn Zone, meeting room 9, and co-organised by the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) Secretariat and the Observatoire Méditerranéen de l'Energie.

In 2010, developed countries committed to raising USD 100 billion per year until 2020 to support climate change mitigation and the needs of developing countries to adapt to climate change (UNFCCC, 2010). This was confirmed in the 2015 Paris Agreement. Such climate funding has been sourced and disbursed through a wide variety of public, private, bilateral, multilateral and alternative sources. For this reason, the aim of the study was to produce an overview on the amount and type of climate finance delivered to the UfM during 2016, with a view to identify the contribution of the USD 100 billion pledge to the UNFCCC. Subsequently, we provided background research and analysis to describe the context and current state of climate finance in the UfM during the last few years.

The countries included in the assessment were Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Turkey, as well as (to the extent possible) Libya and Syria.

The study included relevant data gathered from bilateral donors, multilateral donors as well as additional climate funds, programmes and initiatives from public and private donors. Interviews were also conducted to gather more accurate information on their climate finance tracking records and climate finance definitions. The detailed analysis delved into the types of projects, the purpose of the finance, the nature of the beneficiary and types of financial instruments used in various countries by different funds. The results were cross-referenced with data from the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) database and the Joint Report on Multilateral Development Banks’ Climate Finance.

Despite the several challenges encountered in the data collection process, we found that USD 4.6 billion of climate finance was channelled to the UfM region in 2016. Data and overall estimates were verified through various tracking exercises, which confirmed that the regional flows were in the correct order of magnitude. The study shows that the majority of finance was channeled through Turkey, Egypt and Morocco for large transport and energy projects, which were often disbursed as loans. Mitigation projects were also overrepresented in the region. The greatest challenges in tracking climate finance in the region were found to be reporting transparency and the difficulty in separating development aid from climate finance. Such issues are not new and must be brought to the fore at events like the COP23 if we are to push towards a decarbonised world.

For the full version of the report please access here.

The annual Conference of Parties brings together climate change stakeholders from all over the world to discuss the experiences of implementing the Paris Agreement and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It serves as a global meeting place to review major challenges and potential solutions. This November, Climatekos will partake in three side-events at the 23rd Conference of Parties (CoP23) in Bonn, Germany.

Our senior partner, Robert Tippmann, will moderate the official UNFCCC side-event on Market Mechanisms 2.0 (Where to from here? Moving from the Kyoto Regime to the Paris Scheme), in his role as Vice Chairman of the BVEK. The event has been co-organised by BVEK, ETH Zurich and the Moroccan Government. To lead the discussion, we welcome presentations from our diverse group of speakers, including Jürgen Hacker (BVEK), Bjarne Steffen (ETH Zurich) and Mohamed Nbou (Government of Morocco). A panel discussion will follow, with representatives from the Asian Development Bank, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and stakeholders from Ethiopia. The details of the event are as follows:

Market Mechanisms 2.0. Where to from here? Moving from the Kyoto Regime to the Paris Scheme.

Time: Thursday, 9 November 2017 (13:15-14:45)

Place: Meeting Toom 4

Climatekos will also be presenting the results of its work on mapping the 2016 climate finance landscape in the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) region. Commissioned for the UfM Secretariat under the EU-funded Integrated Maritime Policy and Climate Change Facility, the study provides insights into the ‘who’, ‘where’ and ‘how’ of climate finance to the UfM in 2016.

The side-event, Climate Finance and the Energy Transition in the Mediterranean Region, will be hosted by the UfM Secretariat and the Observatoire Méditerranéen de l’Energie. It will discuss the use of climate finance in the low-carbon energy transition and address some of the major challenges in tracking climate finance. Details are provided below:

Climate Finance and the Energy Transition in the Mediterranean Region

Time: Tuesday, 14 November 2017 (11:30-13:00)

Place: Bonn Zonn, Meeting Room 9

Climatekos will also present on Promoting public-private partnerships, part 2: EU cooperation in the Mediterranean, alongside other partners in the ClimatSouth project, the CGEM (Confederation Generale des Enterprises du Maroc), the Lebanese Ministry of Environment, the NGO “Green Mind” and the UNDP. The side event will look at the strategies, results and tools used to promote climate action plans in the private sector. This event is geared towards the beneficiaries of EU climate funding, the private sector, climate change experts and practitioners.

We are pleased to present members of the European Commission (DG CLIMA) to discuss the role of private business in achieving the SDGs and the Paris Agreement goals. In addition to the EC (DG CLIMA), Faical Mekour (the Vice President of the GCEM) and Houda Bouchtia (the Director of the IECM) will discuss how climate change can be mainstreamed into the private sector. Details for this event are given below.

Promoting public-private partnerships part 2: EU cooperation in the Mediterranean

Time: Thursday, 16 November 2017 (15:30-16:15)

Place: EU Pavillion

In 2010 developed countries committed to a goal of jointly mobilising USD 100 billion per year to support climate change mitigation and adaptation and address the needs of developing countries to adapt to climate change. One of the regions benefitting from this initiative is the Mediterranean region, which is very vulnerable to the impacts of global warming.

In order to obtain an overview of the climate finance flows to the Mediterranean region in 2016, the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) requested Climatekos to develop a study on climate finance flows to the region. The countries included in the assessment are Albania, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Montenegro, Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, and Turkey, as well as (to the extent possible) Libya and Syria. The focus of the analysis is on public funding of bilateral and multilateral donor institutions, whilst trying to contribute to the debates around leveraging private investments as well.

The results of the first phase of the study were presented at the meeting of the Regional Finance Cooperation Committee for Climate Action (RFCCA) on 26 May 2017 in Barcelona, hosted by the UfM Secretariat with the participation of international financial institutions and donors.

The study combines large amounts of data on finance flows and project information to provide a comprehensive picture of the climate finance channelled into the region. First results indicate there are countries with much higher finance flows, e.g. where large-scale renewable energy projects are located, such as Morocco, whereas very few are identified for countries like Algeria or Palestine, which have a special need for adaptation finance due to a high vulnerability to climate change.

According to Climatekos’ Associate Consultant, Sabine Henders, who presented the study, “The meeting was an opportunity to emphasize that a few countries have been very successful in securing climate finance flows, whereas others seem to face barriers in accessing finance options.”

During the second phase of study further data will be collected, verified and analysed. This second phase will help to better understand some of the key issues around accessing and accounting for climate finance flows, here in the Mediterranean region.

On Tuesday 15th November 2016, the EC-funded ClimaSouth Initiative released a handbook on Accessing Climate Finance: A step by step approach for practitioners, prepared by Climatekos, at CoP22 in Marrakech. The handbook provides a systematic methodology to secure the finances for climate action. Although designed originally as a practical toolkit for public and private stakeholders in the South Mediterranean to access climate finance, this handbook is widely applicable for stakeholders on a global scale.

In recent years, many developing countries in the Middle-East and North African (MENA) region have suffered the rising temperatures, increasing drought and desertification associated with a changing climate. Nevertheless, it is not easy to access the necessary funds to protect against such impacts. At the 22nd annual Conference of Parties (CoP22), ClimaSouth released the handbook: Accessing Climate Finance: A step by step approach for practitioners, which has been prepared by Climatekos. As the 8th handbook in a series to promote adaptation and mitigation of climate change, this document gives step-by-step guidance to:

Prepare and assess project applications for climate financeSupport climate finance capacity building/training for key actorsGuide and facilitate applications for climate finance

The work builds on previous climate finance handbooks and manuals, with a few key improvements. Firstly, it incorporates cutting-edge guidance on preparing and assessing project applications, particularly direct-access schemes provided by the Adaptation Fund and the Green Climate Fund. Secondly, it provides more intimate particulars on leveraging climate finance sources and instruments. It also includes specialist advice on blending funding sources by combining conventional public investments with private financing. Such techniques enable actors from the private, public, non-governmental or civil-society sectors to penetrate various funding sources and mechanisms, including private finance.

The tool focuses on key governmental stakeholders and project promoters for countries in the MENA region. This includes, more specifically, the 9 partner countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia) of the European Neighbourhood Partnership Instrument (ENPI). In reality, it is valuable for stakeholders in all countries around the world, particularly developing nations.

The toolkit gives systematic guidance on the application processes of different funding programmes. It also provides much-needed supporting materials, reusable templates, and checklists to train and be used by stakeholders to access funding. What has transpired from this handbook is a living, adaptable document that can facilitate funding pipelines for both present and future projects. We hope that document will empower vulnerable nations to secure the financial resources for climate protection and for low emission development paths.

Next week marks the beginning of the 22nd annual Conference of Parties (CoP22), held in Marrakech, Morocco. This year Climatekos is showcasing the R&D on a cutting-edge tool that is being developed with its strategic partner, Addactis. This tool merges climate impact science with stochastic risk models that are typically used in the actuarial sector. This innovative concept will be revealed at a CoP22 side event, co-organized by UNEP FI, UNEP FS and BVEK. In addition, Climatekos will be presenting a climate finance handbook for South Mediterranean countries. The side event on “strengthening access to climate finance” is organised by the ClimaSouth Project and the Moroccan Development Agency.

Side event: demystifying Private Adaptation Finance & Action - breaking it down to planning and decision-making

Date: Monday 7th, November 2016

Time: 15:00—16:30

Venue: Pacific Room (150), Blue Zone

This year, Louis Perroy will be representing Climatekos at CoP22. Pascal Mignery will represent Addactis, a large actuarial firm specialising in modelling and software and related consulting solutions. They will share their views on ongoing R&D work that aims to facilitate climate adaptation decisions in the public and private sector, as part of the side event on “Demystifying Private Adaptation Finance & Action - breaking it down to planning and decision-making”. Building on a study done on the ports sector of Morocco, Climatekos will present a pioneer methodology that combines forward-thinking climate change expertise with powerful statistical risk modelling that is traditionally used in the financial sector.

The purpose of the tool is to break down adaptation decisions and related investments for planners and managers of infrastructure and infrastructural asset portfolios. It has the potential to track projections of different investments, and show where and when they will be most cost-effective. This is a key opportunity to present traditionally complex datasets and climate projections in a tailored and user-friendly way.

Side event: strengthening access to climate finance

Date: Tuesday, 15th November

Time: 19:00

Venue: Green Zone

In addition, Ali Agoumi, a project partner and climate change expert from the Hassania School of Public Works in Morocco, will present a handbook on how to access climate finance. The handbook takes into account the latest developments in the context of direct access to funding. He will lay out how private investments in climate action work, and how best to leverage private capital with public seed funding. The overall objective is to assist the 9 South Mediterranean countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine and Tunisia) to access vital funds for adaptation and mitigation. The toolbox is designed for governments and other stakeholders, including the private sector and non-governmental actors. It provides step-by-step guidance for targeting climate funding, compiling applications and leveraging finance through several funding opportunities.

These events will be of interest to a wide audience, including local governments, public and private investors, and infrastructural asset managers. Interested parties will be able to provide feedback, guidance and support for the further development of the tool and the handbook. Ideally, the audience will stimulate debate about the varying means of managing climate impacts. They will also provide insights into the application of these practical toolkits to act climate change.

Climatekos, with its strategic partner Trinomics, is currently joining efforts with Cambridge Economics and E3 Modelling. Together, they will publish a “Study on the Macroeconomics of Energy and Climate Policies“, on behalf of the European Commission, Directorate-General for Energy.

The purpose of the assignment is, firstly, to use descriptive and econometric analysis to summarise and learn from the historical evidence on EU energy-related trends in the context of global trends. Secondly, they will explore the role of policy-induced technological innovation and investment-driven low-carbon developments. This will look at the relationships between the economy and innovation, with a particular focus on the supply and use of energy, and the possible impacts of public policy. Thirdly, the aim is to understand and assess the contribution of public and private finance in mobilising investments to decarbonise the EU's energy sector. This is so that these financial contributions can be included in relevant models. Finally, the study will use existing models (particularly E3ME and GEM-E3-FIT) to assess the potential impacts of change in energy systems. This is in particular reference to revised or new EU and non-EU energy-related policies that affect the EU macro-economy, and that incorporate innovation and finance.

Climatekos’ role is to assist in drawing and assessing the financial components of the “decarbonisation” scene today. The focus is mostly within the energy, industry, and transportation sectors. Many factors and players are involved in the financing of such broad areas of decarbonisation, e.g. public sources, large financial institutions, fixed income markets (public and corporate), equity markets (primary and lower markets), PE/VC, or even crowdfunding. All these players may finance the various sectors of decarbonisation (e.g. solar, wind, energy efficiency), indifferently or specifically. The factors that impact sources of finance and means of “decarbonisation” include:

Policy design, regulatory risk, uncertainties in public incentives and business components (e.g. return on investment, cost overrun)Technology specific components (e.g. solar PV, on shore and off shore wind)Elements linked to the nature of renewable energy (e.g. timing of energy production, timing of investments due to the CAPEX/OPEX issue)Shortage of investable projects and opportunitiesCountry efficiency to support “decarbonisation” projectsGovernance and accountability factorsMacro-economic factors (e.g. current low price of fossil fuel commodities) or even the influence of public opinion

Factors and players may either be a help or a hinderance, by "crowding out" each other. For instance, public interventions (such as financial subsidies, taxes or regulations) may crowd out private sector interventions. The bulk of the work comes from mapping all factors and players to assess how they may be better orchestrated or how they impede each other. In the process, we draw parallels between financing high-carbon power generation with that of low-carbon power generation. We also crudely analyse what factors are “well-orchestrated” and what factors simply “crowd out” others in the field of financing high-carbon power generation.

Climatekos is currently completing a successful feasibility study on a project promoting the deployment of environmentally-friendly technologies and integrated climate strategies in rural communities in Uganda. This is as part of Climatekos’ role as the climate advisor to the International Rural Development Service e. V. (ILD) on all climate change and climate finance matters related to a 3-year project for the development of climate resilience, adaptation and low-emissions strategies for rural communities, the rural poor and rural family businesses in Uganda.

This project, which ILD as the development organization of the Federal Assembly of the Catholic Rural People's Movement co-develops and -implements with its local partner Caritas Uganda, is co-funded by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation Co-operation and Development (BMZ). Next to the implementation of demonstration measures integrated, feasible and scaled-up adaptation and mitigation measures are developed as part of a larger climate action programme at the local level.

The overall aim is to develop and establish long term prospects for the implementation of a climate-resilient and low-emission development path for the rural poor based on family farming and businesses.. The target group of the project comprises of about 5600 small-scale family farming and family businesses that are organized in 224 groups (cooperatives, community support groups and similar groups) in 5 districts. They are directly involved in the planning and implementation of the project activities.

Furthermore, the local and regional administration and schools are involved aside from the households, i.e. involvement in the knowledge transfer and the implementation of concrete activities of the project, ensuring broad support and engagement of key stakeholders. In addition, further representatives from selected local non-governmental and civil society organizations will be involved in the project activities (e.g. in their roles as agricultural extensionists) and/or will be prepared to act as multipliers.