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The paper finds a dissonance between the UNFCCC's diplomatic conceptualization of adaptation finance and private-sector realities. While private interventions complement public activities and are 'new and additional' to official development assistance, they fail to meet key criteria regarding predictability and up-scaling costs. The authors conclude that developed countries' role in mobilizing these resources is limited and suggest that only investments principally financing adaptation should be monitored, though this would reduce the total volume of finance contributing to the 100 billion USD target.

The ADP 2-11 session in Bonn was characterized by a loss of consensus and a reversal of previous progress due to dissatisfaction with the Co-Chairs' proposed negotiating text. Instead of advancing toward a final agreement for COP 21, parties spent the session re-compiling a more comprehensive but fragmented text, reverting to positions held earlier in 2015. The meeting was further hampered by procedural disputes over the use of closed spin-off groups and a lack of progress on the accompanying decision text, leaving the Paris negotiations with a complex and unrefined basis for agreement.

The paper explores the analogy between transitional justice—typically used to transition societies from periods of deep injustice to peace—and the climate change context. It identifies four key similarities: unavoidable interdependence, the inadequacy of current judicial processes, disagreements over the link between past actions and future obligations, and the importance of socio-economic human rights. The author suggests that climate policy could adopt specific transitional justice practices, such as guarantees of non-recurrence, reparations, limited liability, and formal peace processes, to move beyond political stalemates regarding historical responsibility. However, the paper also notes significant limitations, including the fact that climate injustices are ongoing rather than past, the lack of a unified global 'society', and the risk of co-optation by powerful actors.

The report compiles research on enhancing global climate action, focusing on innovative financing mechanisms like microfinance and debt-for-climate swaps, the role of carbon pricing in driving innovation, and the necessity of robust accountability frameworks for the Paris Agreement. It also examines specific urban water resiliency in Patna, India, and proposes a Low-Emissions Technology Commitment within the UNFCCC to accelerate energy research. The proceedings emphasize the need for a multi-level approach to adaptation and the potential for 'climate clubs' to overcome multilateral deadlock.

The policy brief highlights how climate mitigation actions under the UNFCCC can infringe on human rights, citing the Sasan coal power project as a case study of forced displacement and pollution. It calls for the Paris agreement to explicitly commit parties to human rights obligations and establish a robust institutional safeguard system, including grievance and monitoring mechanisms, to manage the risks associated with increasing climate finance flows from 2020 onwards.

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is the primary multilateral fund for climate adaptation and mitigation in developing countries. It operates through accredited entities and National Designated Authorities (NDAs), with a target of splitting funding equally between adaptation and mitigation. While it lacks a formal exclusion list for polluting technologies, it employs investment criteria to avoid high-emission infrastructure. Civil society organizations, including Friends of the Earth, act as observers and advocates to ensure transparency and community involvement.

The document evaluates the status of land-use and forestry commitments within the UNFCCC framework ahead of the December 2015 Paris Agreement. It finds that while the REDD+ methodological framework is largely complete, the final text of the Paris Agreement remained under intense negotiation. Analysis of 122 submitted INDCs reveals that most countries set economy-wide targets, with 40 including specific forest actions and 18 explicitly excluding the land-use sector.

The report assesses the early progress of the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF), noting that while new initiatives and commitments have emerged, overall progress remains slow. It highlights a lack of coordinated tracking for non-agricultural deforestation drivers and significant gaps in meeting restoration targets. Key achievements include the inclusion of a deforestation target in the Sustainable Development Goals and increased finance for clean cookstoves and REDD+ payments, though the latter's disbursements lag behind commitments.

This executive summary introduces a monitoring framework for the New York Declaration on Forests (NYDF) and provides an initial assessment of its ten goals one year after their signing. While noting the creation of new initiatives and commitments, the report concludes that global progress has been slow and urgent action is required. Key findings include a lack of deceleration in natural forest harvesting, significant gaps in sustainable certification for soy and beef, and a lag between REDD+ funding commitments and actual disbursements.

A letter from 112 global organizations argues that current accounting for the $100 billion climate finance goal is flawed. The groups demand that only public grants count toward the target, that private finance not be substituted for public funding, and that accounting be conducted through the inclusive UNFCCC forum rather than exclusive intergovernmental processes.

A coalition of 98 global entities argues that the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) fails to comply with international human rights obligations, specifically those recognized in the 2010 Cancun Agreements. The letter calls for the establishment of an independent accountability mechanism, the adoption of international sustainable development safeguards, and the implementation of improved stakeholder consultation processes to prevent environmental and social harms.

The document examines the implementation of REDD+ environmental safeguards, noting that while the 2013 Warsaw Framework makes safeguard information a condition for results-based payments, the broad nature of these guidelines allows for significant national discretion. It proposes using systematic gap analyses of national policies, laws, and regulations to improve the effectiveness of safeguards for protecting natural forests and biodiversity.

The report outlines discussions from a July 2015 workshop regarding the creation of 'low carbon clubs'—coalitions of countries, regional entities, or nonstate actors cooperating on climate objectives. Participants emphasized that such clubs must provide excludable benefits to members to incentivize participation and prevent free riding. The discussions highlighted the necessity of linking carbon pricing with technology innovation and redistribution to ensure efficiency and consumer acceptability. While a global carbon price is deemed unattainable, these clubs are seen as a way for actors to move at 'multiple speeds' complementary to multilateral frameworks like the UNFCCC and the WTO.

The document outlines the goals of COP 21, specifically the adoption of a new international climate agreement to limit global temperature increases to 2°C. It describes the role of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) in setting greenhouse gas targets and identifies critical negotiation areas including adaptation, loss and damage, climate finance, technology transfer, and capacity building in developing countries.

The paper identifies double issuance and double claiming as the primary forms of double counting of emission reductions under the UNFCCC and argues that preventing these requires international coordination across unit accounting, mechanism design, and tracking and reporting.

The document analyzes the shift toward polycentric climate governance, noting that while new dynamic forms of governing are emerging in alternative domains to complement the UNFCCC regime, it is currently too early to determine if these forms will effectively fill existing gaps due to untested assumptions about their performance.

The document outlines the 'fears and suspicions' of the climate community regarding how WTO rules and trade assumptions may obstruct progress on climate change. It argues that the trade regime's focus on economic growth and the avoidance of trade restrictions creates a 'chilling effect' on climate action, as countries fear carbon leakage and loss of competitiveness. The author explores three potential trade-related strategies for climate action: 'levelling up' through border adjustment measures or coordination, favoring environmental goods and services, and using trade sanctions. The paper concludes that while specific reforms to GATT Article XX and the most-favored-nation principle are ideally needed, indirect approaches via jurisprudence or guidelines are more politically realistic.

The paper identifies five key variables—motivation, concessionality/source, causality, geographic origin, and recipient—that shape the debate over what constitutes climate finance. It uses concentric 'onion diagrams' to map these variables based on the level of political consensus among stakeholders, with the center representing the strongest consensus. The authors provide an integrated framework to help Parties transparently communicate their preferences and identify zones of agreement, while also highlighting critical accounting issues such as committed versus disbursed funds and nominal versus subsidy costs.

The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) warns that Section 912(b)(15) of the Customs Bill would hinder climate mitigation by preventing trade agreements from requiring changes to U.S. law regarding global warming. CIEL argues this would leave domestic policies vulnerable to trade challenges, weaken U.S. bargaining power in UNFCCC and CITES negotiations, and block the use of trade agreements to phase out fossil fuel subsidies or promote green technologies, specifically citing risks to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and U.S.-China climate cooperation.

The document outlines the importance of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) as public outlines of national climate plans starting in 2020. It establishes a set of criteria for a 'strong' INDC—defined as fair, ambitious, feasible, and transparent—and provides a detailed six-question evaluation framework. This framework guides users to check for clear statements of intent (mitigation and adaptation), alignment with climate science (specifically the 2 degrees C goal), fairness based on national circumstances, the strength of the design process, implementation feasibility, and methodological transparency.