The International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) has published a tool that tracks opportunities for parties and stakeholders to provide views on issues under negotiation in the UN climate change talks. The UNFCCC Submissions Tracker raises awareness of these input opportunities, by subject and deadline, while providing broader context and suggestions on which stakeholders may be especially interested.

The UNFCCC is the international process through which countries coordinate the global response to climate change. It led to the adoption in 2015 of the Paris Agreement on climate change, which aims to limit the global average temperature rise to well below 2°C and preferably 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Countries that are parties to the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement come together twice a year to discuss the implementation of these agreements and elaborate further measures to enhance climate action. They do so in June, for the meetings of the UNFCCC’s Subsidiary Bodies, and towards the end of the year, for the larger meetings of the Conference of the Parties (COP) and other bodies.

International negotiations are multi-faceted and complex. They cover many issues and work programmes related to the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, adaptation, loss and damage, finance, technology, agriculture, gender, and many other topics. “This means parties have to cover a lot of ground during their two-week-long face-to-face meetings,” IISD writes.

To prepare for the UN Climate Change Conferences and to make the best use of limited negotiation time, the UNFCCC Secretariat is often tasked with collecting views in advance of the talks. Some of these calls for submissions are open only to parties, but many are open to parties as well as stakeholders, including researchers, civil society organizations (CSOs), private sector entities, and youth and Indigenous Peoples’ groups.

Interested stakeholders “can propose topics for workshops and dialogues, provide feedback on the effectiveness of specific work programmes, highlight gaps that should be addressed, and point to resources that might help governments and others enhance their climate action,” IISD notes.

The current iteration of the UNFCCC Submissions Tracker was updated on 21 March 2024. It lists calls for submissions on:

• Adaptation, including the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs);
• Mitigation, including the mitigation work programme;
• Loss and damage;
• Capacity building, regarding the Paris Committee on Capacity-building (PCCB);
• Finance, including in relation to the Standing Committee on Finance (SCF), the Green Climate Fund (GCF), the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the new quantified collective goal on climate finance (NCQG);
• Awareness raising, in relation to Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE); and
• Gender.

It also includes calls for submissions on the Global Stocktake (GST), institutional arrangements, the just transition, science, response measures, transparency, and technology and finance.

IISD will update the UNFCCC Submissions Tracker as needed. [UNFCCC Submissions Tracker]