State of Play on Negotiations: Will COP23 Meet Ambition?

Negotiators have just seven days to hammer out crucial details that will ensure the Paris Agreement stays on track to be fully operational by 2020. Specifically, key issues in the rules governing the Paris Agreement’s implementation and important discussions about how countries can improve their national climate plans – due to be submitted by 2020 – must be agreed here at COP23.

WWF’s global experts in adaptation, mitigation and policy, led by former COP20 president and current global head of WWF’s climate and energy program, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, provide an update on key developments during week one, sum up what urgently needs to be achieved in week two, and comment on whether the discussions thus far are showing the momentum and ambition required to ensure the success of COP23.

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, President of COP20, leader of WWF’s global climate and energy practice

Naoyuki Yamagishi, head of climate and energy, WWF-Japan

Fernanda Viana De Carvalho, policy manager of WWF’s global climate & energy practice

Sandeep Chamling Rai, Senior Advisor on Global Adaptation Policy, WWF-Singapore

Statements on state of play:

Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Leader of WWF’s global climate and energy practice, and president of COP20, said:

"About a week in, we are at a time in the negotiations when the issues on the table, such as pre-2020 action, and loss and damage, are complex but essential to achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Now is the time for the Fijian presidency - and for all of us - to step up and remind ourselves that it has been two years since the world entrusted decision-makers to build a climate safe and resilient future for all. If our ambition was high then, the stakes are even higher now and our collective vision cannot falter."

Naoyuki Yamagishi, head of climate and energy, WWF-Japan

“By the end of these negotiations, we need to finalize the roadmap for the next year to ensure all actors are ramping up their actions before 2020 and setting the foundations for the global stocktake. The decision negotiators make in the next seven days will largely shape our ability to accelerate action on the scale needed to keep the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals in sight.”

Fernanda Viana De Carvalho, policy manager of WWF’s global climate & energy practice, said:

"This round of climate negotiations opened with a clear sense of urgency but this is yet to translate into the results we need to see in to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. The next week must yield faster and greater progress on key issues, such as loss and damage, and pre-2020 ambitions, to ensure that 2018 will see countries raise ambition in both the short and the long term."

Sandeep Chamling Rai, Senior Advisor on Global Adaptation Policy, WWF-Singapore, said:

“These UN climate talks were always going to be a litmus test for progress on adaptation and loss and damage issues but as negotiations carry on, countries must remember the decisions they take will impact the lives of vulnerable communities and ecosystems for years to come. The world's most vulnerable people are looking to Bonn and countries, developed and developing, need to deliver on their promises and implement the full functions of the Warsaw International Mechanism and operationalization of Global Goal on Adaptation."