Lima COP20: Another small step on the long road to Paris

Publications

Keywords: COP20, UNFCCC, Lima, climate agreements

Author(s): Ibon Galarraga and Mavi Román

Date: 2015-13-02

Issue: 2015-01

Keypoints

The Lima summit was not expected to achieve specific agreements on the reduction of emissions, but to establish the bases of a legal document to be agreed on at the next meeting in Paris (December 2015) and of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC). And that is precisely what happened.
In the coming months, each country will define its mitigation commitments as of 2020. The United Nations will then calculate the gap between voluntary pledges and the reductions that are required to keep global temperature increase below 2ºC. Thus, the Parties will have a solid, common basis on which to negotiate in Paris how to address the said gap.
This is the first time ever that all countries are willing to assume very important greenhouse gas reductions. It is the end, after two decades of climate negotiations, of the differentiation between countries due to their level of industrialisation based on the Annexes of the Kyoto Protocol.
In Lima an announcement was made of new contributions to the Green Climate Fund, which already stands at US$10.2m. Progress is therefore being made with the previously assumed (and reiterated in the new text) commitment by developed countries to support mitigation and adaptation in developing countries with US$100b by 2020.
The first steps were also taken towards greater integration of national policy with other decision-making levels, and towards greater consideration of the gender dimension in climate policies.