5 March 2019
UNFCCC Publishes Overview of Katowice Climate Package
Photo by IISD/ENB | Kiara Worth
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The Katowice Climate Package provides guidance for the second round of NDCs that countries will submit by 2025.

The UNFCCC Secretariat will make available a prototype public adaptation registry, together with the prototype NDC registry, through one portal with two parts: one for adaptation communications and the other for NDCs.

Among the outstanding issues that still need to be finalized are guidance on voluntary cooperation and market-based mechanisms.

February 2019: The UNFCCC Secretariat has published an overview of the Katowice Climate Package, which elaborates implementation guidelines for the Paris Agreement on climate change, including procedures and mechanisms that will operationalize the Agreement.

On mitigation, the Katowice Climate Package provides guidance for the second round of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that countries will submit by 2025. The guidance describes the contents of and approach to mitigation goals and activities to ensure comparability across NDC. The guidelines also address: mitigation co-benefits; capacity-building support to help developing countries produce their NDCs; a common timeframe for communicating NDCs; negative impacts of response measures on certain countries and sectors; and modalities for the operation and use of a public NDC registry.

On adaptation, the implementation guidelines provide clarity on tracking efforts to enhance national capacities for adapting to climate change impacts. The UNFCCC Secretariat will make available a prototype public adaptation registry, together with the prototype NDC registry, through one portal with two parts: one for adaptation communications and the other for NDCs. The guidelines also include a review of institutions supporting adaptation, and a process for considering ways to mobilize greater adaptation support. The Katowice Climate Change Conference also agreed that the Adaptation Fund will serve the Paris Agreement. By 2022, the Adaptation Committee is expected to work with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on drafting supplementary guidance on communicating adaptation information.

The implementation guidelines provide for the most vulnerable countries to report on climate-related damages and losses they have suffered.

On loss and damage, the guidelines provide for the most vulnerable countries to report on climate-related damages and losses they have suffered, as well as projections of future losses and damages, and information on the kinds of support that are required.

On financing action in developing countries, the Katowice Climate Package, inter alia:

  • confirms the mobilization of more climate finance toward the USD 100 billion per year goal by developed countries by 2020 and through to 2025;
  • underscores the importance of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), including its 2019 replenishment, and the Global Environment Facility (GEF) in supporting developing countries;
  • details arrangements for providing predictability and clarity on climate finance, including through the submission of biennial communications on expected levels of climate finance by developed countries; and
  • makes provisions to ensure that financial flows are consistent with low-emission and climate-resilient development.

The implementation guidelines also establish a process for assessing progress on the development and transfer of technology. The first assessment will be initiated in late 2021.

On building trust through transparency, the Katowice Climate Change Conference adopted procedures and guidelines to operationalize the Enhanced Transparency Framework. The guidelines define the reporting information to be provided, the technical expert review, transitional arrangements, and a “facilitative multilateral consideration of progress.” The conference requested the GEF to support developing countries in preparing biennial transparency reports.

In Katowice, countries also established a committee to facilitate implementation of the Paris Agreement as well as compliance with its provisions in a non-punitive manner.

On evaluating global progress, governments will conduct a Global Stocktake (GST) every five years beginning in 2023 to consider all aspects of the Agreement. The implementation guidelines agreed in Katowice define the process of organizing and conducting the GST more rigorously, and all stakeholders will provide inputs to the process.

Outstanding issues that still need to be finalized relate to, inter alia, guidance on voluntary cooperation and market-based mechanisms.

The Katowice Climate Change Conference convened in Katowice, Poland, from 2-14 December 2018. [Overview of the Katowice Climate Package] [Decisions Adopted at the Katowice Climate Change Conference] [SDG Knowledge Hub Story on Katowice Climate Change Conference Outcomes]


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