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The document outlines the criteria for a 'strong' INDC, emphasizing that it must be equitable, ambitious, science-based, and transparent. It provides a detailed evaluation framework based on six questions: clarity of intent, alignment with science, equity and ambition, robustness of the design process, feasibility of implementation, and transparency. The guide distinguishes between 'results-based' and 'action-based' mitigation commitments and encourages the inclusion of adaptation plans based on evidence of climate risks.

The document outlines the criteria for a 'strong' Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), emphasizing that such commitments must be fair, ambitious, and scientifically grounded. It provides a detailed evaluation framework based on six key questions: clarity of intent, scientific consistency, fairness and ambition, process robustness, implementation viability, and transparency. The guide distinguishes between mitigation approaches (actions vs. direct effects) and encourages the inclusion of adaptation components based on evidence of climate risks. It stresses that INDCs should drive a 'transformative' decarbonization pace to align with the goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius.

The report examines how international law can address the systemic discrimination women face in forest tenure, which risks being exacerbated by REDD+. It provides a typology of relevant rights—including land tenure, gender-specific, procedural, FPIC, and environmental rights—and analyzes how these can be leveraged within the UNFCCC and World Bank's FCPF frameworks to ensure women are recognized as key stakeholders and rights-holders.

The report examines the relationship between the 2015 climate agreement and the post-2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs), arguing that a high-ambition agreement is essential for achieving the SDGs by 2030. It analyzes two scenarios—high-ambition and low-ambition—focusing on policies and investment in mitigation and adaptation, with the high-ambition scenario aligned with the UNFCCC goal of limiting global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.

The document examines the challenges of governing climate change with fixed rules given the evolving nature of scientific insights and socio-economic conditions. It evaluates the UNFCCC's current flexibility mechanisms, critiques proposals for a more pluralist approach to law, and seeks a balance between flexibility and the need for predictability and stability.

The document serves as a practical toolkit for LDCs and SIDS to formulate INDCs, offering a modular template that covers national context, mitigation, adaptation, planning processes, and implementation means. It emphasizes the flexibility allowed for these nations under the Lima Call for Climate Action, suggesting both measure-based and outcome-based approaches to mitigation. The guide highlights the importance of identifying synergies between adaptation and mitigation to attract international support and demonstrate political ambition ahead of the 2015 Paris COP.

The report examines the feasibility of reaching the $100 billion annual climate finance goal by 2020 through four scenarios of varying inclusivity. It finds that relying solely on developed country climate finance is insufficient, while a combination of public flows—including multilateral development bank (MDB) finance and climate-related official development assistance (ODA)—alongside leveraged private sector investment makes the target achievable even under low-growth projections. The analysis highlights a persistent imbalance, with mitigation finance projected to significantly outweigh adaptation finance across all scenarios.

The authors argue that the UNFCCC is no longer the only site of global climate governance and propose a research agenda to examine how it interacts with other governance arrangements. They specifically identify 'division-of-labor linkages' and 'catalytic linkages' as two types of interaction within the global climate governance landscape that warrant further study.

A group of international organisations calls on the EU to ensure that all external climate actions respect and promote human rights, aligning the EU Strategic Framework and Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy with international obligations and the goals of the UNFCCC.

A group of organisations calls on the European Union to ensure that its external actions on climate change fully respect and promote human rights. The letter highlights the importance of maintaining human rights language in the 2015 international climate treaty and suggests that the EU's Strategic Framework and Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy should explicitly support these objectives.

The Geneva Pledge, signed by 19 nations in February 2015, commits governments to foster collaboration between their human rights and climate change experts. The signatories acknowledge that climate change disproportionately affects vulnerable populations and pledge to ensure that the transition to a low-carbon economy respects human rights and ensures no one is left behind.

Carbon Market Watch asserts that climate change and sustainable development are deeply interlinked and that the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) must incorporate stronger wording and a standalone climate goal. The author warns that the current separation between the SDG process and the UNFCCC process creates confusion and risks undermining development efforts, as the UNFCCC climate treaty will not enter into force until after 2020.

The document asserts that climate change is a major human rights challenge, threatening rights to life, health, and food security, particularly for vulnerable groups. It criticizes the UNFCCC for slow progress in operationalizing rights protections and recommends that the 2015 climate agreement include explicit human rights obligations, establish institutional safeguards, create a dedicated work programme on human rights and climate change, and implement a grievance mechanism to address harms caused by mitigation and adaptation activities.

The document positions climate change as a major human rights challenge, noting that environmental degradation threatens fundamental rights such as life, health, and food security. It criticizes the UNFCCC for failing to operationalize human rights protections despite recognizing them in 2010. The authors propose a human-rights-based approach to climate action, emphasizing the need to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, provide compensation for loss and damage, and establish institutional safeguards, including a formal complaints mechanism and a dedicated work program on human rights and climate change.

The SEI Initiative on Climate Finance focuses on enhancing the delivery and effectiveness of climate finance for developing countries. It addresses four primary areas: defining and evaluating effectiveness to ensure long-term social and economic change; reforming the fragmented global finance architecture to reduce transaction costs; analyzing the role and viability of private finance in adaptation and energy transitions; and operationalizing the concept of 'intolerable risks' to better address loss and damage.

The document analyzes the conflict between the principle of differential treatment (CBDRRC) used in climate law and the principle of equal treatment central to international aviation law. It argues that a 'contextual treatment' approach—which differentiates based on changing national circumstances and implementation assistance—is more viable for regulating aviation emissions than the rigid binary divisions of the Kyoto Protocol. The brief notes a shift toward this approach within the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the European Union (EU), suggesting that such flexibility is key to establishing a global market-based emissions reduction mechanism.

The paper proposes four complementary mechanisms to enhance the UNFCCC's effectiveness for the 2015 agreement: specifying a global long-term emissions goal (such as net zero by mid-century), establishing a predictable commitment cycle for national contributions, ensuring each cycle results in increased emissions reductions, and implementing an assessment and revision process to identify further low-carbon policies.

The document argues that the 2015 climate change agreement requires a new mitigation architecture that balances national ownership with multilateral coherence to keep global temperature rise below 2°C. It suggests a system of "levels" of guidance for emission reduction offers, starting with simple common parameters and increasing in complexity, alongside a systematic and frequent approach to submitting and reviewing offers to drive necessary reductions.

The document outlines the role of the Biennial Assessment (BA) in tracking climate finance flows from industrialised to developing countries to support the goal of limiting global temperature increases to 2 degrees Celsius. It highlights the commitment of industrialised governments to provide US$ 100 billion per year by 2020 and emphasizes the necessity of Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) to ensure transparency and effectiveness in mitigation and adaptation activities.

The Lima Declaration, issued during the Peoples Summit on Climate Change in December 2014, rejects market-based climate solutions and the 'capitalist-patriarchal system'. It demands the recognition of territorial property rights for indigenous and peasant communities, the reparation of 'historical ecological debt' owed by developed countries to the global South, and a transition to a communal, feminist economy based on food sovereignty and agro-ecology. The document specifically denounces the influence of transnational corporations on the UNFCCC and calls for the cessation of extractive industries and agrofuel production.