UN Climate Change Secretariat Releases First Ever Annual Report
The United Nations Climate Change Secretariat released its first ever annual report this week, outlining key achievements made by the Secretariat in 2017 and highlighting the work needed in 2018.
“Climate Change is the single biggest threat to life, security and prosperity on Earth,” said UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa in response to the release of the annual report. “This annual report shows how UN Climate Change is doing everything it can to support, encourage and build on the global response to climate change.” Espinosa also explained in the opening of the annual report that “UN Climate Change’s mandate is to lead and support the global community in this international response, with the Paris Agreement and the Convention being the long-term vehicles for united global climate action.”
The annual report is essentially a document that focuses on the work done by UN Climate Change, which is a body that includes the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Kyoto Protocol, and Paris Agreement, as well as their separate bodies, institutional arrangements, organs and the Secretariat. Unsurprisingly, therefore, there is a lot of work going on that needs to be addressed, including the massive UN Climate Change conference (COP23) that was held in Bonn, Germany, and presided over by Fiji, last November. Almost 30,000 people came for the conference to drive and spur action on climate change and resulted in financial commitments amounting to almost $1 billion aimed at tackling climate change.
2017 was the first full year in action for the Paris Agreement, following its successful drafting at the end of 2015 and signing in early 2016. This then marked a big part of UN Climate Change’s focus in 2017.
Following the work done at COP23, UN Climate Change helped governments make key decisions including the signing of the Talanoa Dialogue which is being billed as a collaborative process intended to review progress toward the global goals of the Paris Climate Agreement ahead of COP24 at the end of this year, set to be held in Katowice, Poland.
“The purpose of Talanoa is to share stories, build empathy and to make wise decisions for the collective good,” explains the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “The process of Talanoa involves the sharing of ideas, skills and experience through storytelling.”
In addition, governments signed the first ever Gender Action Plan, which will aim to increase the participation of women in climate change responses, as well as the first-ever agreement on agriculture and climate and a first-ever platform for indigenous peoples and local communities.
The report looks at the large-scale achievements accomplished by UN Climate Change in 2017, but also looks to the “Outlook for 2018 and beyond.” Among other things, including the aforementioned Talanoa Dialogue, there is growing focus on post-2020 goals for governments the world over that “need to be set in place now, technologies developed, matured, commercialized and deployed at scale, and practices and behaviors of economic actors need to move ever faster towards lowemission and sustainable business and investment.”
“Throughout 2018 and beyond, let us do all in our power, together, to accelerate action,” said Ms. Espinosa. “Only by doing so can we succeed in protecting our planet from climate change and securing a low-carbon, sustainable future.”
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