24 March 2011: Speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of ministers in Mexico City, Mexico, who gathered to discuss the implementation of the Cancun Agreements, Christiana Figueres, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, called on governments to maintain momentum to ensure that timelines agreed at the UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun, in December 2010, are met.

Referring to the upcoming UN Climate Change Change Conference in Bangkok, Thailand, scheduled to take place from 3-8 April 2011, Figueres underlined the need for governments to “maintain momentum at Bangkok by agreeing to a clear work-plan for 2011 and by taking forward outstanding substantive work.” She explained that this includes work on making the institutions for climate funding, technology cooperation and adaptation fully functional within the deadlines agreed in Cancun. Highlighting progress made since Cancun, the Executive Secretary indicated that the Transitional Committee that will design the Green Climate Fund is now being constituted and will take up its task at a first meeting in Mexico City in late April. She also announced that the UNFCCC Secretariat had begun to design an initial prototype for a registry matching developing country actions to developed country support. A simple prototype should be ready in time for the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany, in June 2011.

Looking ahead to the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 17) in Durban, South Africa, Figueres underscored the need for governments to resolve remaining issues over the future of the Kyoto Protocol and to address growing concerns that “there may be a gap in the promised efforts of countries within the world’s only working and binding international model to reduce emissions.” [UNFCCC Press Release]