7 February 2013: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat has released the summary of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) Special Event held in Doha, Qatar, on 1 December 2012, in conjunction with the second part of the first session of the ADP. The event, convened by the ADP Co-chairs Harald Dovland (Norway) and Jayant Moreshver (India), aimed to provide observer organizations with an opportunity to become involved in the ADP’s work.

The special event, which was attended by over 330 participants, was launched by presentations provided by four experts: Niklas Höhne; Daniel Bodansky; Jiahua Pan; and Abyd Karmali. Pan addressed, inter alia, elements to be considered in the 2015 agreement, such as the need for accelerating the transformation to a low-carbon economy through equitable access to sustainable development (EASD); and a secure, zero-carbon, affordable, sustainable and reliable energy system. Bodansky highlighted the trade-offs between ambition, participation and compliance to achieve “climate effectiveness” and underscored potential options for the structure, substance and form of the 2015 agreement. Abyd Karmali said incremental financial requirements are estimated at more than US$60-175 billion per year and that the private sector has a critical role to play in shifting to a low-carbon economy, stressing different ways to incentivize climate financing. Höhne highlighted a proposed approach called “wedging the gap,” consisting of 21 coherent major global initiatives, which involve a variety of actors, such as major cities, large companies and individual citizens, and that together would trigger greenhouse gas reductions of around 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020.

Observer organizations presented their views on the discussions on the 2015 agreement (ADP’s workstream 1) and on ways to bridge the ambition gap to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2ºC or 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels (ADP’s workstream 2), as well as on the Doha outcome. When discussing the Doha outcome, some participants stressed the need for a ministerial-level engagement through round tables or panels and exchanged on possible topics for the high-level discussions, including: actions by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and their relation to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) process; funding and implementation of nationally appropriate mitigation actions (NAMAs); and increasing near-term ambition.

The ADP Co-chairs said they would report back to the ADP on the exchanges from the Special Event. [Summary of ADP Co-chairs’ Special Event] [Special Event Experts presentations]