COP-Ref

With the adoption of the Paris Agreement in 2015 and subsequently the completion of the corresponding rulebook at COP24 in Katowice, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Chance (UNFCCC) has mostly completed its regime building process. The imminent conclusion of the Paris Agreement Work Programme (PAWP) represents a critical juncture for multilateral climate governance and opens a new chapter for the UNFCCC and its annual Conference of the Parties (COP). Now, it is time to shift the focus from negotiation to implementation and facilitate implementation, monitor progress and raise ambition.

Against this background, the German Development Institute (Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik, DIE) and the Wuppertal Institute organised a series of discussions on the future of the UN climate conferences in the summer of 2020. The online seminars aimed to examine how the nature of the annual meeting of the COP to the UNFCCC may be shaped in the future to make the best use of what has become a global focusing event for climate action. Four days of intense discussions yielded much insight and many ideas on how future COPs could be adjusted to the new task of promoting implementation.
The aim of the COP-Ref project is to further develop the insights generated during the seminar series into an academic article.

The COP-Ref project is implemented as part of the Klimalog project conducted by the DIE on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.