The UNFCCC Secretariat has announced that the negotiating text for the anticipated 2015 climate change agreement has been translated into the six official UN languages and formally communicated to governments. The text was agreed as the basis for negotiations by the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) at the eighth part of its second session in February 2015.
The global climate change agreement is expected to be adopted at the Paris Climate Change Conference in December 2015. According to the Secretariat, all the legal procedures required for countries to adopt a legal instrument under the UNFCCC have now been completed.
Communicating the text well in advance of the May 2015 deadline will allow early consideration of areas of emerging consensus and the range of options available to governments, according to UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres. The text contains various country proposals on mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology, capacity building, and transparency of action and support.
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In his address on this year’s World Cities Day, UN-Secretary General António Guterres recognised that “cities have borne the brunt of the pandemic” and called upon governments to “prepare cities for future disease outbreaks”. Authorities cannot waste this opportunity to build back better by simultaneously addressing the increasing economic hardship for the urban poor and climate change impacts. This will help prevent not only future health risks but also the increased risk of urban violence and insecurity.
The new group will try to advance climate policies, even as some of its members are likely to clash. Critics say the group’s efforts won’t go far enough.
With climate change increasingly affecting food production in South Asia, it is time to focus on making food markets more resilient to climate shocks.
Michael Keating, Executive Director at the European Institue of Peace (EIP), argues that peacebuilding and conflict resolution must not disregard the impacts of the climate crisis on livelihoods, social cohesion and conflict resolution.