2 August 2010: Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, held a press conference on the opening day of the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany. She highlighted five key areas in which progress can be built.

Stressing the need for governments to make progress at the Bonn session and “keep the momentum going,” she underscored that “[i]t won’t do to leave everything to the last two weeks in Cancun.” She outlined five areas where progress can be built, highlighting that: governments need to resolve what to do with their public pledges to cut emissions; governments seem on track to agree to a comprehensive set of ways and means to allow developing countries to take concrete climate action; industrialized countries can turn their pledges of funding into reality; countries want to see that their agreements are transparently measured, reported and verified; and governments need to resolve how to capture their pledges in a binding manner.

She concluded by stating that governments need to “deliver this combination of accountability and binding action so that civil society and business can be confident that clean, green strategies will be rewarded globally, as well as locally.” [Speaking Notes]