Summary
On Wednesday, delegates at the Chile/Madrid Climate Change Conference looked up from their technical negotiations to take stock of climate action.
The technical part of the stocktake on the implementation and ambition of climate action before 2020 launched in the afternoon. Parties reviewed the work of the UNFCCC related to mitigation efforts, and supporting enhancing implementation and ambition. Many found the event sobering, with civil society denouncing a “lost decade” of mitigation and climate financing efforts, and some parties noting that the needs of developing countries remain unmet.
Appropriately timed, several events drew attention to the role of science. The Chilean Presidency hosted science ministers (and their equivalents) from around the world in a virtual meeting to discuss how they can contribute to the development of countries’ climate pledges. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) held an event to better understand the IPCC’s Special Report on Climate Change and Land. Opening the event, the UNFCCC Executive Secretary underscored that “the facts are telling us that we are impacting the support systems keeping us alive.”
The Marrakech Partnership for Global Climate Action also reviewed climate action in the first of its series of events. The 2019 Yearbook of Global Climate Action reflects the state of action taken by non-party stakeholders – businesses, cities and regions, and civil society. The report shows that these actors, often in collaboration with countries, are increasingly delivering on initiatives that can help close the emissions gap. But, challenges remain to scale up the potential of non-state climate action.
Technical negotiations continued, particularly for finance, loss and damage, and Article 6 (market and non-market mechanisms). Article 6 negotiators reviewed new texts in the morning, which some thought looked “promising.” The afternoon negotiations seemingly supported this optimism, as delegates worked constructively to move “forward ever, backward never.”
For more details on the day’s negotiations and to hear what delegates said in the corridors, see our daily Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB).
