19 September 2013: The Advisory Board of the Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN) held its second meeting back-to-back with the 7th meeting of the Technology Executive Committee (TEC), and adopted key policy documents to enable the CTCN to start its work.

The second meeting of the CTCN Advisory Board took place from 9-11 September 2013, in Bonn, Germany, bringing together approximately 40 representatives from intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), non-governmental organizations (NGOs), UN organizations and UNFCCC parties.

During the meeting, the Advisory Board, whose role is to guide the operations of the CTCN, discussed and approved the CTCN Programme of Work. This five-year rolling programme (2013-2017) describes how the CTCN will deliver on its activities and targets, as well as the budget required to meet these targets. The delivery of these activities and targets will depend on the availability of funds to the CTCN and the nature of demand expressed from developing countries through their national designated entities (NDEs). The Advisory Board agreed to review this Programme of Work annually as the CTCN becomes fully operational to allow for refinement and revision as needed.

The Advisory Board also approved the CTCN Modalities and Procedures, which are based on the terms of reference of the CTCN that explain its roles and responsibilities in managing requests from developing countries through their NDEs and delivering responses.

Furthermore, the Board approved the criteria for prioritizing requests from developing country parties. These take into account discussions at the first Advisory Board meeting, recommendations provided by the TEC based on its meeting reports, information obtained from the Regional Experts Dialogues in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and from reports on Technology Needs Assessments (TNAs) prepared by 35 countries.

Finally, the Board approved the guiding principles and criteria for establishing the Climate Technology Network, which aim to enable the structure of the Network to be established. The Network will provide most of the technical assistance to developing countries. The approach envisaged is one of gradual expansion and increasingly sophisticated structuring of the Network, reflecting the expected build-up of demand and underlying financing for activities as well as experience and learning within the CTCN.

Among next steps, the CTCN highlights the following milestones. The CTCN Modalities and Procedures approved by the Advisory Board will be submitted for adoption at the 19th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 19) in Warsaw, Poland, from 11-22 November 2013. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) will prepare a note for NDEs by COP 19 explaining the process by which CTCN will handle requests from developing countries. The next Advisory Board meeting of the CTCN is tentatively scheduled for early 2014 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

UNEP is the leader of the consortium of partners of the CTCN. [IISD RS Sources] [CTCN Website]