21 August 2018
APA, SBI, SBSTA Presiding Officers Issue Reflections ahead of Bangkok Session
Photo by IISD/ENB | Sean Wu
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The Bangkok session seeks to conclude with an agreed basis for negotiations for all PAWP items that reflects clear, streamlined and detailed options that can be quickly converted to draft decision text.

The reflections note underscores that the Bangkok session is the last opportunity for Parties to prepare for COP 24.

The note acknowledges uneven and insufficient progress on PAWP agenda items, and emphasizes that COP 24 must address and reach a substantive outcome on all items mandated under the PAWP.

16 August 2018: The presiding officers of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Paris Agreement (APA), the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) have published a joint reflections note on the status of negotiations under the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) and on the way forward. The note aims to help Parties prepare for the upcoming Bangkok sessions of APA 1-6, SBSTA 48-2 and SBI 48-2.

The Bangkok meeting, taking place from 4-9 September 2018, is aimed at producing an agreed basis for negotiations for all PAWP items that reflects clear, streamlined and detailed options that can be quickly converted to draft decision text. This would enable decisions to be taken during the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 24), which will meet in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018. The reflections note underscores that the Bangkok session is the last opportunity for Parties to prepare for COP 24.

The note encourages Parties to begin considering: the format of the decisions to be adopted by the COP and the COP serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) in Poland; which issues should be included as decisions and which could be included as technical guidance; and whether the Katowice outcome should be a single “omnibus” decision or multiple decisions on individual items.

The note acknowledges uneven and insufficient progress on PAWP agenda items, and emphasizes that COP 24 must address and reach a substantive outcome on all items mandated under the PAWP, and clearly identify any necessary follow-up work and allocate it to the subsidiary or constituted bodies. It emphasizes the need to bring PAWP items to a comparable level of progress and preparedness in advance of COP 24. The note also discusses continued and strengthened coordination among the Presiding Officers, linkages between PAWP items, both within and across bodies, time management issues and organization of work.

The reflections note also discusses the set of tools prepared by the APA Co-Chairs for the Bangkok session on the various APA agenda items, which are intended to be additional to and based on informal notes contained in the annex to the conclusions from APA 1-5.

In Bangkok, as detailed in the note, the SBSTA will deliberate elements in the updated draft technology framework, guidance to the Technology Mechanism, structure and/or arrangement of the technology framework, and interlinkages with other Paris Agreement provisions, with the aim of completing the technical discussion of the technology framework in Bangkok. The SBSTA will also address modalities for the accounting of financial resources provided and mobilized through public intervention.

The SBI will consider common time frames for Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), including duration of NDCs, when to communicate NDCs, and implementing flexibility for developing countries with regard to common time frames. The note explains that the SBI will also address:

  • modalities and procedures for a public registry for NDCs, including whether the registry should only be a repository of NDC submissions or go beyond that;
  • modalities and procedures for a public registry for the adaptation communication, including whether the registry should only be a repository of communication for the recognition of adaptation efforts, or go beyond that; and
  • the periodic assessment of the Technology Mechanism, including the scope of and modalities of undertaking the assessment.

Regarding issues that the SBI and the SBSTA will address jointly, the note discusses aims for the Bangkok session related to the Adaptation Committee and matters related to the least developed countries (LDCs), such as:

  • modalities to recognize adaptation efforts of developing countries and the relationship between such modalities and the modalities of the global stocktake (GST);
  • enhancing the coherence of the work of adaptation-related institutional arrangements under the Convention;
  • methodologies for assessing adaptation needs, including any follow-up work by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and partner organizations of the Nairobi work programme on impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change;
  • mobilization of support for adaptation in developing countries; and
  • and methodologies on reviewing the adequacy and effectiveness of adaptation and support, and the ways in which the results of their application could feed into the GST.

Regarding the joint SBI-SBSTA agenda items on the modalities, work programme and functions of the forum on the impact of the implementation of response measures, the note describes that Parties could address linkages with other PAWP agenda items, and identify issues that may require follow-up work by the subsidiary bodies after Katowice. [Joint Reflections Note] [Bangkok session website]


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