Second informal ministerial consultations to prepare COP21

Paris, 6-7 September 2015

Aide-mémoire produced by France and Peru

Paris, 24 September 2015

1. Introduction

The incoming French Presidency of the COP21 and the current Peruvian Presidency of the COP20 organised

an informal ministerial meeting in Paris on 6-7 September 2015 to help prepare the COP21. Some 57 parties

to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change took part in the meeting, of which 37

were represented at ministerial level or equivalent. In addition, the Special Envoy of the UN Secretary

General, Mary Robinson, the UN Assistant Secretary General on Climate Change, Janos Pasztor, and the

Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC Secretariat, Christiana Figueres, were present as were also the co-chairs

of the Ad Hoc Group on the Durban Platform, Ahmed Djoghlaf and Dan Reifsnyder. This meeting followed

a first ministerial meeting organised by the French and the Peruvian governments in Paris on 20-21 July

and two earlier consultations at the level of lead negotiators.

Both presidencies sought to ensure that participation was balanced and representative of the different

regions and negotiating groups within the UNFCCC. In addition to the parties that had been invited, a

number of others requested to take part and were able to do so.

The main part of the meeting was devoted to two key blocks of questions for the success of COP21: means

of implementation – finance, technology and capacity building; and adaptation and loss and damage. As

in the previous ministerial meeting, ministers were divided into two smaller groups which allowed each to

have an in-depth discussion on the two key topics before reporting back to the main plenary. The two

presidencies would like to thank Ministers Khaled Mohamed Fahmy Abdel Aal (Egypt), James Fletcher

(Saint Lucia), Amber Rudd (United Kingdom) and Vice Minister Pablo Vieira (Colombia) for their great

assistance in moderating the two break-out groups.

A discussion over dinner was devoted to ways to the wider transformation of investment with presentation

from the OECD on work underway on tracking climate finance flows. A discussion over lunch focused on

initiatives to strengthen research and development for climate technologies.

The meeting closed with a session on the way to Paris.

It was an informal, political meeting, a complementary space to enable ministers to clarify positions and

to expand their understanding of emerging areas of convergence on a number of key issues, as well as on

areas that require further consultations. Although the meeting itself was not a negotiation, and it did not

produce agreed conclusions, ministers stressed the need to speed up negotiations under the ADP, to solve

issues and to prepare the ground for the success of Paris.

In order to ensure transparency, the two presidencies have prepared, under their own authority, this aide-

mémoire reflecting the broad lines of the discussion. They will report on its content at the forthcoming

meeting of the ADP in October. For their part, ministers who were present agreed to give instructions to

their negotiators and to inform their respective negotiating groups of the tenor of discussions so as to

ensure that the next session of the ADP in October can make rapid progress.

2. Means of implementation – finance, technology and capacity building

Highlights

There was agreement on the central place of means of implementation in the Paris agreement, as well

as the interlinked nature of the different elements – finance, technology and capacity building – which

are all essential for supporting both mitigation and adaptation. Finance, in particular, was seen as critical

to success in Paris, although the central role of technology and capacity building was also underlined.

Past decisions and arrangements already provided for considerable action on finance, technology and

capacity building. The fulfilment of these existing commitments would be an important component of

the success of the Paris agreement, vital to strengthening the trust needed to reach and to implement

an agreement. There was agreement on the need to consolidate existing institutional arrangements

under the Convention and find the appropriate manner to anchor them in the Paris agreement.

For pre-2020 finance:

- Transparency on the mobilisation of 100 billion USD from public and private sources would be

critical. The OECD/CPI study on climate finance would be a valuable input, but there would need

to be a wider discussion and an opportunity for the Standing Committee on Finance to further

develop such methodologies in preparing its next biennial report on financial flows in 2016.

- Forward-looking plans, building on strategies and approaches, could contribute to giving clarity

on the pathway to 100 billion USD. Some argued it would be positive to set a milestone of aiming

to mobilise 60 billion USD in 2016.

For post-2020 finance:

- Transparency and predictability would remain critical, including through regular updates and

forward looking plans. The debate was still open on the opportunity to fix numerical targets, for

example some proposed setting 100 billion USD as a floor after 2020.

- It would be necessary to mobilise private finance at a much larger scale.

- There were proposals to expand the donor base after 2020 and wide recognition of the value of

South-South cooperation although many stressed its complementary character.

- INDCs could provide a basis for investment plans, clarifying the mobilisation of national

resources, and support from international sources.

- There was support for giving special attention to the poorest and most vulnerable, in particular

least developed countries and small-island developing States, and considerable interest in an

adaptation target.

On technology:

- It would be important to build on existing institutions, to improve TEC and CTCN and anchor

them in the agreement.

- There was a need to scale up access to existing technologies, specific proposals included

initiatives to finance IPR and for pilot projects on technology cooperation.

- There should also be strengthened collaboration to develop new technologies and make them

affordable through efforts on public and private research and development.

There was recognition of the central role of capacity building and debate on how best to ensure improved

institutional arrangements, including proposals for a new mechanism and discussion of its possible role.

2.1 Finance

The mobilisation of finance before 2020, and in particular meeting the developed countries’ commitment

to mobilise 100 billion USD annually from public and private sources by 2020, was at the heart of the

discussion. Three points in particular would be critical for progress in Paris.

- Transparency on finance mobilised and understanding of what had been provided.

o There was a unanimous call for better transparency on climate finance. Half way to the

deadline for mobilising 100 billion USD annually, financial resources had been mobilised,

but it was now vital to have clear and credible figures and an agreed methodology on

which financial flows should be counted and how.

o There was interest in the outcome of the donor ministerial meeting convened by

Switzerland on 5-6 September, immediately before the ministerial informal meeting, to

develop a common understanding among developed countries of their mobilised climate

finance and a common methodological framework to account for mobilised private

climate finance1.

o There was also interest in the upcoming OECD/CPI report on estimating current public and

private flows mobilized for mitigation and adaptation which would be presented at the

informal meeting of finance ministers convened by Peru and France in Lima on 9 October

and which was expected to provide a range giving the best and most up-to-date estimate

of current financial flows towards meeting the 100 billion USD objective.

o These initiatives were broadly welcomed as they could contribute to clarifying climate

finance flows. There were demands for greater involvement of developing countries in

1 http://www.news.admin.ch/NSBSubscriber/message/attachments/40866.pdf

this work. It was noted that the methodologies used would be available for further

development by the Standing Committee on Finance in preparing its next biennial

assessment of climate finance in 2016.

o On more specific points, there was agreement on the need for methodologies to avoid

double-counting and to prevent attributing to developed countries the private finance

mobilised by public investment of developing countries. It was further noted that given

continuing uncertainties, estimates for private finance mobilised by public interventions

by developed countries would be made in a conservative way and hence might

underestimate real flows.

o It was noted that transparency on the recipient end would also help provide a better

understanding on how funds are flowing to developing countries and their impact.

- Honouring contributions to the Green Climate Fund and the successful approval of concrete

projects by the GCF before Paris would be important signals.

- There was agreement on the need to provide clarity on the pathway to 100 billion USD in 2020.

o There was a shared understanding that it would be necessary to continue to scale up

resources and efforts for mitigation and adaptation in support of developing countries. A

focus on transparency and confirming this sense of progression would provide

reassurance on the pathway.

o It also appeared acceptable to developed countries to provide forward-looking

information on their planned climate finance, and at least to confirm how much they

would mobilise in the following year. Some countries provided information on how they

would scale up their climate finance in the coming years.

o There was some support for setting an intermediate target, with a specific proposal of

aiming to mobilise 60 billion USD in 2016. Some felt that they would be able to meet their

share of such an aspirational target. The character of any such target (hard or aspirational)

would be an important factor to consider. In any case, agreement on definitions and

transparency rules on counting public and mobilised private finance would be necessary..

There was considerable continuity between the pre-2020 debate and that on the finance outcome for the

period after 2020.

- There was broad support for continuing to strengthen MRV and transparency systems to provide

predictability and regular updates on finance after 2020. Specific proposals requiring further work

included regular updates of efforts to mobilise climate finance involving all parties (“cycles”),

preparing forward-looking plans, strengthened “strategies and approaches”, and a principle of

progression.

- There was some support for reaffirming the 100 billion USD commitment in Paris for the period

after 2020 and treating it as a floor for the future mobilisation of climate finance. Some considered

it important to set further targets for mobilising climate finance after 2020. Predictability was

considered more important than a specific number for some.

- It would be important to know what developing countries could do with their own resources and

their need for international cooperation. In that light, better understanding of INDCs could help

envisage trajectories and hence inform the mobilisation of climate finance so that developing

countries could fully participate in mitigation and adaptation efforts.

- There was a sense that developed countries should continue to show leadership and not backtrack

on their existing financial commitments.

- There were calls to expand the donor base after 2020. There was recognition that South-South

cooperation already plays a role and will continue to do so, and several countries presented efforts

that they were already making, whilst stressing the complementary nature of such cooperation

which should not replace support from developed parties and in particular could not be counted

towards the commitment taken by developed countries.

- It would be important not just to scale up “green investment” but also to scale down “brown

investment”.

- A delegation proposed to set a target of a percentage of GNI to be mobilised for climate action by

developed countries, in a similar but additional way to the 0.7% target for development finance,

starting by 0.1% in 2016 and rising to 0.5% per year from 2020 onwards.

All recognised the vital need to mobilise private finance, before and after 2020. The Paris agreement should

send a clear signal to transform investment. However, it was noted that the Paris agreement would be

made between parties and that it would be difficult to commit directly the private sector. The challenges

of tracking private climate finance had been noted in the discussion on transparency although it had also

been noted that methodologies were being developed.

All also recognized the critical importance of public finance for adaptation activities, and the need for a

balanced treatment of adaptation and mitigation in terms of finance was reminded by many parties (see

§3.3 for report from discussion on means of implementation for adaptation and loss and damage).

Several interventions highlighted the importance of specific support for the most vulnerable countries, for

example for early warning systems.

2.2 Technology

All recognised that the current technology mechanism could constitute the basis for future arrangements

under the Paris agreement. In particular, the Technology Executive Committee and the Climate Technology

Centre and Network were seen as valuable institutions, which could be further developed to achieve their

full potential.

Some parties expressed the need for a more integrated approach, from assessment of needs to

deployment of technologies. Clarifying the linkages between the technology mechanism and the financial

mechanism could be of help in doing so.

Developing countries needed the technologies that suited their needs and not necessarily the most

advanced technologies, hence existing technologies could support implementing current INDCs, provided

access and scaling-up are ensured.

All recognised that intellectual property rights were important for encouraging innovation in technologies.

Some also presented IPR as a barrier to access to technologies although industry seemed to consider that

it was not the real problem. It would be important that the agreement find the balance between these

approaches and send the right signals to technology providers. One specific proposal was for the GCF to

study a facility to pay for certain IPRs and effectively make some good technologies “IPR neutral”. Another

proposal was to consider a pilot project to see how technology cooperation could be carried out.

It was important to address technology innovation. Governments should set clear goals or objectives and

come up with effective policies to support innovation. A provision in the agreement to encourage

collaborative research and development could be helpful.

2.3 Capacity building

There was agreement on the central role of capacity to enabling and facilitating action for policy

development and implementation, supporting institutional development, access to finance and

technologies, reporting and transparency including the implementation of strengthened MRV rules. To that

end, capacity-building and its related institutional arrangements should be strengthened in the Paris

agreement to be permanent, robust, context-specific, gender-responsive, and country-driven. Ensuring

better cooperation between existing bodies would be important.

Some proposed the creation of a dedicated, new capacity building mechanism to provide assistance and

evaluation, and aim to enhance coordination and effectiveness for increased capacities on the

ground. There were requests for clarity on the functions that such a new mechanism might fulfil to

understand its added value, but all indicated that they were willing to discuss further.

3. Adaptation and loss and damage

Highlights

There was strong agreement about ensuring political parity of adaptation with mitigation in the

agreement and that adaptation is important for all countries. Indeed, the Paris agreement should not be

just a mitigation agreement but should cover adaptation, as well as finance, technology and capacity

building.

On adaptation:

- There was support for a qualitative global goal on adaptation. Further work could be undertaken

after Paris in a work programme on metrics, and might further address specific quantitative

goals such as access to early warning systems.

- The Paris agreement should further strengthen recognition and encourage national action on

adaptation.

- Multilateral collaborative efforts on adaptation should also be encouraged.

On loss and damage:

- There was progress on the need to deal with loss and damages in the Paris outcome, but an

open question remained on whether it should be within the legal instrument or in associated

decisions.

- There was also understanding that action on loss and damage could be in a framework of

solidarity and international support rather than compensation.

- Building on the Warsaw International Mechanism would be important.

Support was repeatedly mentioned (both in the discussions on adaptation and loss and damage and in

those on means of implementation) as a key element for developing countries to be able to adapt, reduce

vulnerability and build resilience, as well as respond to loss and damage.

3.1 Adaptation

There was promising common ground that the Paris agreement should include a global adaptation goal or

long term vision that gave all countries direction of travel in terms of adaptation.

- A qualitative goal or vision appeared to be acceptable to all.

o Different ingredients for this qualitative goal or vision included reducing vulnerability,

increasing resilience, achieving resilient and sustainable development, and recognizing the

global, regional and local dimensions of adaptation.

o There was also acceptance that the link between the level of mitigation and its impact on

the needs for action on adaptation should be reflected in the Paris agreement, and may

figure in this qualitative goal or vision, but positions were divergent when the link was

extended to include finance.

- Some also saw value in having a quantitative element or elements for adaptation even though the

development of such quantitative indicators or metrics would be challenging, especially in the

short time remaining before COP21. Some specific suggestions were mentioned such as fixing a

qualitative goal in the agreement, together with a mandate in the work programme contained in

the accompanying decision for the development of indicators/metrics or specific quantitative

goals (for example to develop early warning systems by a given year or to have national adaptation

plans).

The Paris agreement should recognise and encourage countries’ actions on adaptation.

- A range of elements were identified as actions individual countries should/shall pursue under the

Paris agreement including: integrating adaptation into national and/or sectorial planning;

developing national adaptation planning; developing “nationally determined adaptation priorities,

contributions or plans”; developing vulnerability maps/indexes; ecosystem-based adaptation;

adaptation measures with mitigation co-benefits.

- Such actions could further the recognition of what countries are doing, the identification of their

needs, and facilitate sharing information, best practices, and learning from others. Multilateral

collaborative efforts on adaptation should also be encouraged.

- Some proposed a separate communication tool, or including such elements in INDCs but others

felt it would be more appropriate to rely on existing tools, such as national communications, in

particular to minimise the reporting burden.

- General principles to frame these elements might include “being country driven”, not mandatory,

not creating extra reporting burdens, and not being over-prescriptive in order to reflect the very

different needs and paths to adaptation that countries with varying circumstances need to take.

- Means to coordinate these efforts were mentioned including, online platforms and a process/cycle

with reviews and assessments of global adaptation actions. A collective understanding of needs

and action on adaptation, and/or a qualitative assessment of adaptation, would be important

contributions to an overall stocktaking. To this end, national actions could be monitored and

evaluated, but it would not be appropriate to apply the same sort of MRV arrangements as for

mitigation.

3.2 Loss and Damage

There was general agreement that loss and damage must be addressed in the Paris outcome, to give

permanence and prominence to its treatment. There remained an open question on how best to do this,

whether in the core agreement itself and/or in a supporting decision or decisions.

The future of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage (WIM) was seen as a key issue.

- The WIM had taken a long time to operationalise, but it was finally getting going. The review

programmed for 2016 created some uncertainties about its future.

- There were different views about how its mandate might evolve, in particular whether it ought to

be widened to address permanent and irreversible loss and to make a link to the financial

mechanism.

- There were different views on whether the WIM should remain the institutional arrangement for

dealing with loss and damage (albeit evolving) or whether a new mechanism should be established

under the Paris outcome.

The need for financial and other forms of support for loss and damage was emphasized, but the issue of

how to provide this support was not resolved and parties expressed that this needs to be elaborated.

There were clear statements by some Parties that the Paris outcome should not seek to create a

compensation scheme or to attribute liability to developed countries for loss and damage. Some parties

expressed concern that such notions might be implicitly included in certain proposals under discussion in

the ADP. Others highlighted the need to initiate a process to develop approaches to address irreversible

and permanent loss and damage.

Some Parties noted the need to focus more on global/international solidarity and support. There was much

discussion around the need for early warning systems, tools to address risk transfer, a climate displacement

facility, and insurance mechanisms. Some parties mentioned specific initiatives such as those launched by

the G7 on insurance and the French-led initiative on early warning systems.

The way in which the arrangements of the Paris outcome might address specific challenges such as

displacement was important for some parties.

Many parties argued that loss and damage and adaptation were different, others saw them more as two

elements of a continuum.

3.3 Support for adaptation and loss and damage

Parties saw support as including not only finance, but also technology transfer and capacity building.

Finding a balance between support for mitigation and adaptation was a challenge, but there had been

progress in this front, such as the GCF decision to aim to allocate equal funding to both issues. Some called

for equitable financing to be mobilised for adaptation within the wider mobilisation of financial support or

for an adaptation funding target to be fixed within the wider mobilisation of climate finance.

Support for the most vulnerable, in particular LDCs and SIDS, was mentioned as a priority by many parties.

There was a sense that it would be easier to generate private sector investment for mitigation than for

adaptation, and there was agreement that public finance would remain important for

adaptation. However, it was also noted that there are examples of private investment in adaptation and

that this should be further encouraged.

There were calls to strengthen the existing adaptation mechanisms and institutions. Calls for new ones

related to a capacity building mechanism, an additional loss and damage mechanism, or a climate

displacement facility.

Some parties also mentioned the importance of the MRV of support for adaptation, and for the impacts of

that support, so lessons can be learned.

4. Next steps – the road to Paris

Ministers welcomed the dedication of the ADP co-chairs and the strong mandate given by the

August/September session of the ADP to produce a clear, concise, streamlined and consolidated text by

the first week of October. At the same time, they regretted the slow pace of progress to date and

underlined that there remains only one week of negotiating time to prepare a text that would be ready to

be finalised at COP21, recalling that COP21 would be asked to adopt a legal instrument and that this would

require negotiations to conclude by Wednesday 9 December to leave time for legal and linguistic

examination of the final text before its adoption on Friday 11 December. As such, they called for the

remaining ADP session in October to be used as efficiently and effectively as possible and urged the co-

chairs to use their mandate to present a draft text at the start of October that would represent a step-

change, be short (no more than 20 pages for the central instrument), and contain the necessary but limited

options reflecting different views from parties on key outstanding issues.

Ministers indicated their support for the approach taken by the French and Peruvian Presidencies to

provide political guidance to the negotiations and the value of informal consultations for identifying

possible ways towards success in Paris and reaffirmed their intention to give clear instructions to their

negotiators and to work within their negotiating groups to seek solutions and compromises in the

remaining ADP session before Paris and in further informal consultations.

In addition to the topics currently addressed in the negotiations, several countries highlighted the

importance of changing lifestyles and models of consumption and production to facilitate the move to low-

greenhouse gas emitting and resilient economies and societies.

The incoming French presidency outlined the broad calendar for the coming months:

- There will be an opportunity to take forward discussions in the margins of the General Assembly

of the United Nations in late September.

- The co-chairs will present a short, clear and consolidated text as a basis for negotiations in the first

week of October.

- A meeting of finance ministers on financing issues will take place in Lima on 9 October in the

margins of the 2015 Annual Meetings of the IMF and World Bank.

- The ADP will resume its session from 19-23 October and move into a new mode of work focused

on drafting.

- The incoming COP21 Presidency will organise an enlarged pre-COP in France around 8-10

November to continue the preparation at a political level of the Paris agreement on the basis of

the limited number of questions still open after the ADP session of October so as to prepare the

remaining discussions in Paris.

- COP21 opens on 30 November and closes on 11 December.

- The COP21 presidency will invite Heads of State and Government who wish to take part in the COP

to be present on the opening day, 30 November, for a special high-level event.

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ANNEX

Questions addressed in the break-out groups

Means of implementation

Finance

1. How to provide credible reassurance, up to the COP21, and from 2015 to 2020, that developed

countries are on track to achieve their commitment to mobilise 100 billion USD annually by 2020?

2. What could be the shape and content of the post-2020 finance outcome? How it could improve the

predictability and sustainability of climate finance? And how it could help with mobilizing additional

resources?

3. How could the Paris outcome send the necessary signals for economic actors to align their actions

with the transition towards resilient and low GHG economies?

Technology

How can the Paris agreement accelerate the development and deployment of climate technologies,

including to contribute to drive down the cost and facilitate easier access to low-carbon and climate

resilient technologies, including through R, D&D efforts?

Capacity building

How can the Paris agreement capture the role of and respond adequately to the needs of developing

countries for capacity building in the post-2020 regime?

Adaptation and loss and damage

Adaptation

1. How could we describe a long term vision or goal on adaptation, what should this vision/goal achieve?

2. In order to operationalise a long term vision or goal on adaptation to enhance/further/build resilience

of all parties, what kind of individual commitments should the Paris outcome establish?

3. How could the Paris outcome help to improve support and cooperation on adaptation?

Loss and damage

1. How could provisions in the Paris outcome ensure that the issue of loss and damage associated with

impacts of climate change is addressed in a long-lasting manner?

2. What collective provisions could capture a long-lasting acknowledgement of loss and damage in the

Paris agreement while addressing the issue of potential liabilities for compensation?

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