In 2011, the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to establish a process to “develop a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the Convention applicable to all Parties” (the Agreement). The Agreement will seek to put in place a regime to reduce emissions to limit temperature increase to 2°C1 by the end of the century. Implementation of the Agreement will begin in 2020. The Agreement is expected to be adopted by the parties to the Convention at the climate change negotiations in Paris (COP21), which will take place from 30 November 2015 to 11 December 2015.
On 24 July 2015, a consolidated draft text for the Agreement was released to help guide negotiations towards an international climate change agreement at COP21 (Draft Text).
The Draft Text is organised in three sections:
- A draft agreement. This includes provisions that are appropriate for inclusion in an agreement such as overarching commitments, durable provisions and standard provisions for an agreement.
- A draft COP Decision (Decision). This includes provisions that are more appropriate for inclusion in a Decision such as details of implementation of the agreement, provisions likely to change over time and provisions related to pre-2020 actions and interim arrangements.
- A third section that includes provisions which could go in either the agreement or a Decision.
As would be expected, the draft agreement and Decision, together with the content of the third section, cover the broad range of areas that have been discussed in previous climate negotiations. These include mitigation of climate change, adaptation to climate change, the provision of climate finance, technology development and transfer; issues around the measurement, reporting and verification of climate actions, procedural / institutional provisions and the means of documenting climate commitments that the parties may make.
An overview of some of the key areas of the Draft Text is set out below.