NOAK and NEFCO organised a side event on NAMAs and MRV requirements during the UN climate conference at COP18 in Doha, Qatar on 3.12.2012. There are different opinions on what the minimum requirements on MRV systems for NAMAs should be and what the role of the UNFCCC would be in this regard. Issues have also been raised on whether there should be a differentiation in the MRV system between the different types of NAMAs. The aim of the side event was to explore practical experience on the issue, both from on-going initiatives and from the donors. This report first presents briefly the key concepts NAMA and MRV, then discusses each presentation and finally draws a summary on the observations and lessons emerging from the side event.

How can REDD credits be included in a future global carbon market, and what are the impacts of inclusion? We analyze ten different scenarios through 2020, varying the global emission caps and the REDD rules. An inclusion of REDD credits without any adjustments in the global cap will lower carbon prices significantly and cause crowding out. The cap must move towards the 2 degrees climate target if REDD inclusion is to maintain high carbon prices and strong incentives for emissions reductions in other sectors. At the same time, reaching the 2 degree target without full REDD inclusion will increase global mitigation costs by more than 50%.

Since 2009, the Nordic countries have increased their efforts to support developing economies in the mobilization of private finance. It is now time to take stock of the success stories. Regardless of the progress, several barriers limit the Nordic ability to scale up private climate finance even more. This brief presents ideas for addressing some of these the barriers and increasing the ambition in mobilizing private finance, including considerations on de-risking solutions and the applicability of Article 6 under the Paris Agreement. The brief was produced as part of the Nordic Public-Private Platform on Mobilization of Climate Finance Mobilization, and ahead of the global climate conference in Katowice, December 2018. It builds on previous studies funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers, such as “Mobilizing climate finance flows – Nordic approaches and opportunities”.

In 2013, Parties to the UNFCCC were invited to prepare and communicate their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) under a 2015 agreement. Assessment and review of INDCs can help to ensure that these contributions are in line with internationally agreed objectives and principles, help establish and enhance transparency, trust and accountability between Parties, and raise ambition over time.

 This report analyses the existing review processes both under and outside the UNFCCC. It suggests that some form of ex ante assessment and review process of INDCs could help ensure that they are ambitious and fair. Such process can be complemented by assessments by observer organizations and informal discussions among Parties. In addition, a periodic review of collective ambition is desirable from the perspective of environmental effectiveness, and can build on existing review processes.

In 2013, Parties to the UNFCCC were invited to prepare and communicate their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) under a 2015 agreement. Assessment and review of INDCs can help to ensure that these contributions are in line with internationally agreed objectives and principles, help establish and enhance transparency, trust and accountability between Parties, and raise ambition over time.

 This report analyses the existing review processes both under and outside the UNFCCC. It suggests that some form of ex ante assessment and review process of INDCs could help ensure that they are ambitious and fair. Such process can be complemented by assessments by observer organizations and informal discussions among Parties. In addition, a periodic review of collective ambition is desirable from the perspective of environmental effectiveness, and can build on existing review processes.

A crucial question in the development of a new climate change agreement centres on the “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) that parties have agreed to communicate before the COP 21 in Paris in December 2015. This paper explores options for the design, organization and timing of the ex ante assessment process of the INDCs. It identifies key choices to be made in Lima, and the implications of these choices for the road to Paris. Finally, it discusses the implications of the design, organization and timing of the assessment for future review processes under a Paris agreement.

Increasing food production in the face of a growing population, while adapting to and mitigating climate change constitutes a main challenge for the global agricultural sector. This study identifies, analyses and contextualizes regional initiatives related to agriculture and climate change in developing countries. In order to identify needs for improvements and possibilities for replication or scale-up, a review of recently launched initiatives is combined with a SWOT analysis. Moreover, the study places initiatives in the context of INDCs of Sub-Saharan African countries submitted under the UNFCCC. As a result, recommendations on how to develop and implement best practice agriculture climate change initiatives are presented.

Against the backdrop of population increase, changing dietary patterns, increased affluence and rising demands on land for the generation of biofuels, agricultural productivity is required to increase significantly in the coming years. This increase will take place in a context of constrained resources and a changing global climate requiring increased adaptive capacity and increased resilience of agricultural systems. At the same time, agricultural activities are contributing significantly to climate change, with agricultural production and the food supply chain being responsible for up to a third of total anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

A significant share of the greenhouse gas emitting activities of China is operated by state owned enterprises (SOEs). This report, written by Fridtjof Nansen Institute for the Nordic Council of Ministers, discusses the role of SOEs on the electricity and steel sectors, for instance, in upgrading technologies, centralizing operations and developing alternative energy sources. Informal networks, guanxi and nomenklatura, and financial ties provide the state control over SOEs. This makes SOEs a preferable alternative to private companies. As policies limiting emission growth have been economically attractive to SOEs so far, they have shown little opposition but this may change should costly measures be introduced in the future. While China’s position in climate negotiations is determined by the political leadership, the SOEs deserve attention due to their impact on China’s emission trends.

The Nordic Partnership Initiative on Upscaled Mitigation Action (NPI) supported developing countries in designing and implementing mitigation action and attracting funding from international climate finance and carbon markets. In Peru, the initiative focused on building readiness for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in the municipal solid waste sector. It generated comprehensive information on the sector’s status and trends in terms of waste and emissions, mitigation potential and costs, and barriers to action. Mitigation plans for landfills were prepared, a robust information system developed, and policy reforms introduced for recognising waste as a valuable raw material. The NPI results have been integrated into national and local development plans and serve as valuable building blocks in the design and implementation of Peru’s mitigation pledges under the Paris Agreement.

This booklet presents actions taken by the Nordic countries to speed the transition to a sustainable low-carbon society. It shows how sustainable development is possible, with strong climate policies contributing to economic growth and job creation as well as environmental improvements. The Nordic countries successfully demonstrate how ambitious climate change mitigation targets and policies can be combined with high levels of human development.

Underpricing of fossil fuels, caused by subsidies, drives carbon intensive consumption. Reforming fossil fuel subsidies and allocating some of the savings to sustainable energy could accelerate a transition to fairer, safer, cleaner and more sustainable energy systems. This report outlines the Nordic Council of Ministers’ work to promote these swaps through the development of a business model and description of the link between fossil fuel subsidies, reforms and carbon emissions. The report evaluates potential swaps to increase industrial energy efficiency in the mining sector, in the context of energy sector reforms in Zambia; and the replacement of butane subsidies with solar investments in Morocco. The report also presents an outline of how Nordic countries are supporting reforms and driving the swaps agenda as part of Nordic Solutions to Global Challenges.

This report presents the results from a research project ”Long term impact of the Copenhagen accord regarding the 2 degree target”, done at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland during autumn 2010 and winter 2011 for the Nordic Ad Hoc Group on Global Climate Negotiations (NOAK). The report portrays greenhouse gas emission pathways that would minimize the costs of reaching the 2oC target, while simultaneously taking into account the uncertainty of and future learning on climate sensitivity. Using these scenarios, we argue that the emission level resulting from the Copenhagen Accord would be at least 5 Gt CO2 eq higher than the cost-effective level in 2020. Therefore future climate negotiations should aim for more ambitious emission reductions, both in and after 2020.

If the Paris Agreement is to be implemented successfully, it is crucial that all actors step up their actions, including non-state actors such as businesses, cities, regions and investors. Transparency is crucial but still largely missing from the drive to report on current actions and scale them up. The Climate Initiatives Platform (CIP) is a vital transparency tool for international cooperative climate initiatives, so called ICIs, driven by non-state actors. The CIP provides open-source data on many aspects. It is also the data provider to the UNFCCC Global Climate Action portal NAZCA on ICIs. The aim of this project is to improve the CIP further. This document presents a strategy for tracking progress, including an impact-monitoring framework. In addition, analyses of progress with ICIs and of their coverage versus the potential emission reductions in certain sectors are provided.

There is strong evidence showing the urgent need for scaling-up climate finance to mitigate greenhouse gases in line with the 2°C target, and to support adaptation to safeguard the international community from the consequences of a changing climate. While public actors have a responsibility to deploy climate finance, it is clear that the contribution from the private sector needs to be significant. Consequently, a strong public commitment is needed to engage with the private sector and ensure climate finance is leveraged and deployed effectively. In this context, Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are a promising avenue to contribute to climate finance delivery. PPPs provide frameworks to ensure public leadership and accountability in tackling climate change, while enabling the ownership of certain components of climate finance to be transferred to private hands.

The Paris Agreement is widely considered to be of historic significance sending a strong signal to non-state actors that countries stand behind curbing greenhouse gas emissions with the objective to keep temperature rise well below 2°C, with efforts to stay below 1.5°C. Still the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions by national governments will likely limit temperature rise to under 3°C but be insufficient to limit it to 2°C or lower. The multitude of international cooperative initiatives (ICIs) underway outside the formal negotiating process will be needed to support these government actions.

In response to the growing interest in the potential for ICIs the Climate Initiative Platform was developed. This report highlights the information currently present in the platform as well as the changes and outlook for this comprehensive data on cooperative initiatives post-2015.

If the Agreement’s goal - limit the global temperature increase below 2°C - is to be met, all financial flows need to shift dramatically and rapidly from current investment patterns to 2°C compatible pathways. This study analyses the roles Nordic actors might play in mobilizing finance flows internationally and outlines a roadmap that can guide joint Nordic action during the next five to ten years. While the roadmap covers components of “climate related ODA” and climate compatible contributions from the private sector, the focus of the roadmap lies on the crucial bridging and dialogue that is required between key actors. Building on identified Nordic strengths and areas needing accelerated international support, the report concludes with a set of immediate next steps to operationalize the roadmap in 2017-2018.

In recent years, Nordic actors have illustrate leadership in mobilizing private finance for climate compatible investments with, for example, Nordic joint finance institutions and development finance institutions (DFIs) as key contributors.  Greening the financial system - Nordic experiences and ways forward highlights some lessons learned by the Nordics. It also reviews Nordic experiences in light of the recent global agreements and commitments, with a particular view on how the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and the on-going EU work on sustainable finance can help accelerate action. The brief was produced as part of the Nordic Public-Private Platform on Mobilization of Climate Finance that brought together leading Nordic actors through four thematic issues groups.

The goal of reaching an ambitious globally binding climate agreement by 2015 is one of the key challenges that the international community needs to address. Issues on how private finance can be linked to public funding structures to ensure sufficient funding for mitigation and adaptation activities, and how technology transfer could work as part of climate finance continue to be key topics in the upcoming climate negotiations.This report focuses on the current Nordic climate finance landscape, and uses the Nordic Climate Facility (NCF) as a case study, to offer examples of and lessons learned from practical Nordic climate actions that can be used in on-going and future climate negotiations. The report concludes with eight targeted recommendations that highlight key points and lessons learned that can be used for replication and scaling up of future climate actions.

It is widely acknowledged that the greenhouse gas emissions reduction pledges made by national governments are insufficient to achieve what is required by science to avoid dangerous levels of global warming. In parallel to the formal climate negotiations, a multitude of international cooperative initiatives (ICIs) are now engaging in efforts to address the growing emissions gap.

A database and web platform have been developed that presents the most current and comprehensive publically available collection of information on ICIs in operation. The web platform includes details of more than 180 mitigation-focused initiatives that have the potential for impact at the global scale. The project also makes recommendations for continuing support for the database and additional activities to support an increasing use of the database to inform negotiators and other stakeholders.

International Cooperative Initiatives (ICIs) could hold significant promise for closing the global emissions gap between a pathway to a 2°C warming limit and current national emission reduction pledges. This report examines a selection of these ICIs to explore their potential for delivering additional greenhouse gas mitigation and for raising ambition at national and international levels. It concludes that there are a range of ICIs already making an important contribution. Many have potential to scale-up their activities and could offer promising new channels for public climate finance.

The following is a debrief note from the international workshop on ‘Market Based Mechanisms and Results Based Finance’ organized by the Nordic Council of Ministers in co-operation with Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) and KfW Development Bank on 11.10.2013 in Stockholm, Sweden.The Nordic Council of Ministers in co-operation with KfW and NEFCO wish to contribute to an increased momentum for market based mechanisms through focused exchange and coordination among potential first movers from the finance sector, European policy makers and further interested key stakeholders.

A new scoping study for NOAK sheds light on synergies between climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies, and suggests that Nordic countries place more focus on financing synergies.  The study argues from a financing perspective that there is potential in funding synergistic activities for improving the efficiency of climate change actions. While the landscape of current research remains rather scattered and limited, examples that demonstrate promising potential have been identified in several sectors: agriculture, forestry and land use, energy, infrastructure planning and construction, transportation, insurance, and waste treatment. Synergies are offering solutions to more efficient, responsive and comprehensive climate policy. Activities which genuinely combine climate change adaptation and mitigation perspectives can also result in co-benefits with other goals of sustainable development, the report concludes. The study reveals that no funding instruments with explicit and systematic aims to harness synergies exist to date. However, multiple stakeholders interviewed in the study acknowledge the potential for synergies and assume the existence of these to some extent in several of their activities, suggesting that there is a strong need to dedicate more attention to synergies. The study provides four recommendations: Firstly, it recommends that more empirical research on synergies is conducted to further define and concretize the benefits and challenges - in some cases trade-offs between mitigation and adaptation also exist. Secondly, it is suggested that a review of the funding criteria of relevant climate funds is carried out. Thirdly, it is recommended that the concept of synergies is linked with the climate mainstreaming agenda. Finally, attention should be paid to opportunities to catalyze private sector climate action also in harnessing synergies.

In spite of the climate finance commitment by the developed countries to mobilise jointly 100 billion USD per year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries from a wide variety of sources, there is no clear agreement on the types of funds that might count as mobilised by developed countries and what private finance flows could be considered as mobilised for climate action in developing countries.This study identifies ten considerations that are key to estimating mobilised private climate finance. An example methodology is proposed for tracking mobilised private investment and the methodology is tested on three Nordic case studies. Through the further refinement of methodologies, it should be possible to develop common systems for M&E of finance enabling a clearer understanding of the finance landscape and the effectiveness of interventions for mobilising private investment.

The Nordic Council of Ministers and the Government of Belgium organized a workshop on Operationalizing Equity in the 2015 Agreement on 24.-25.10.2013 in Stockholm, Sweden. The workshop aimed to focus on implementing equity in a practical way, rather than having abstract, theoretical discussions. The first day was devoted to academic presentation and follow-up discussions. The second day featured a roundtable discussion between negotiators under Chatham House Rules.

To what extent and how can equity be operationalized in a spectrum of mitigation commitments? We approach this question through academic literature review and analysis of Parties' submissions and statements. We argue that a potentially feasible and constructive way forward is a mutual recognition approach. This approach implies that parties should accept a set or norms, and a range of interpretations of these norms, as legitimate. Parties should also respect a principle of reciprocity, which means that any (interpretation of a) principle of fairness invoked by oneself can legitimately be invoked also by others. We apply this approach to the issue of equity indicators, and propose a non-coercive template of indicators approach, building on two critical components: transparency and open, critical review of Parties' pledges and justifications thereof.

Siden 2009 har Brasilien, Sydafrika, Indien og Kina – de såkaldte BASIC-lande – samarbejdet i de internationale klimaforhandlinger. Dette afspejler deres stræben efter en større indflydelse på den globale politik. Men der er nogle der hævder at gruppens fremgangsmåde har blokeret for fremskridt i forhandlingerne. Dette er dog en overfladisk betragtning. Hvis man ønsker en reel indsigt i BASIC-gruppens fremgangsmåde, er det nødvendigt at forstå udviklingsproblemerne i hvert enkelt land og den geopolitiske værdi som de ser i et samarbejde. Der er tale om fire forskellige lande, og derfor er det de indenrigspolitiske prioriteringer som definerer grænserne for deres samarbejde, og hvad de kan bidrage med i klimadiskussionerne. Denne rapport, som Nordisk Ministerråd har bestilt fra Stockholm Environment Institute, giver en mere nuanceret forståelse for BASIC-samarbejdet. En sådan forståelse er af afgørende betydning hvis de internationale klimaforhandlinger skal lykkes.

This report analyzes the development trends and conditions of the Russian economy, specifically its energy sector. It also reviews the projections of carbon emissions by 2020 and beyond in the context of the Russian government's scenarios of economic development. The second section of the report focuses on Russia's position in the negotiation process on a post-2012 climate regime, including the emission limitation pledge, carry-over of the surplus of assigned amount units (AAU) beyond 2012 and the forest carbon sinks. The report is written by Dr George Safonov, State University - Higher School of Economics/ Russian Environmental Defense Fund and Dr Oleg Lugovoy, Russian Environmental Defense Fund and Dr Anna Korppoo, the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. The Nordic Ministers of Environments established the Nordic COP 15 Group early in 2008. In January 2010 the group was renamed to the Nordic ad hoc Group on Global Climate Negotiations. The main tasks of the group are to prepare reports and studies, conduct relevant meetings and organize conferences supporting the Nordic negotiators in the UN climate negotiations. The overall aim of the group is to contribute to a global and comprehensive agreement on climate change with ambitious emission reduction commitments.

Under the Nordic Partnership Initiative (NPI), the Nordic governments in cooperation with the Nordic Development Fund (NDF) and the Nordic Environment Finance Corporation (NEFCO) have supported readiness to design and implement robust climate action within the cement sector in Vietnam and the waste sector in Peru, in close partnership with the implementing countries. Readiness activities have now resulted in comprehensive NAMA proposals that hopefully can attract financing from various sources, including carbon markets.

The Nordic Partnership Initiative on Up-Scaled Mitigation Action (NPI) has been established in December 2011 to support climate change mitigation efforts in developing countries. The NPI is funded by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and implemented in co-operation with Peru and Vietnam. The implementing partner in Peru is the Ministry of Environment of Peru (MINAM).

La Iniciativa de la Asociación de Países Nórdicos para las Acciones de Mitigación (NPI, por sus siglas en inglés) se constituyó en diciembre de 2011 con la finalidad de apoyar los esfuerzos de mitigación del cambio climático en los países en desarrollo. La NPI fue fundada por Dinamarca, Finlandia, Islandia, Noruega y Suecia e implementada en colaboración con Perú y Vietnam. El socio colaborador para la implementación en Perú es el Ministerio del Ambiente de Perú (MINAM).

En Perú, el Programa de Preparación de Medidas de Mitigación apropiadas para cada pais (NAMA, por sus siglas en inglés) elaborado en virtud de la NPI se implementó entre agosto de 2013 y junio de 2015 y se centró en los residuos sólidos municipales, es decir, residuos domésticos y residuos procedentes de actividades comerciales y turísticas. El Programa de preparación dio lugar a una propuesta de NAMA a gran escala para el sector de residuos en Perú.

The aim of the Initiative is to demonstrate how innovativefinancial and regulatory incentives as well as the removingof barriers can achieve sector-wide greenhouse gasemission reductions in developing countries. The initiativealso aims at building capacity in developing countries. Using a bottom-up methodology that draws heavily on theinput of local stakeholders, NAMA Readiness Programmeshave been conducted in Peru and Vietnam.

Under the Paris Agreement, the Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) requirements for greenhouse gas emissions of all countries will be harmonised. Sector-wide MRV systems developed for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs), such as in the NAMA Readiness Programmes established under the Nordic Partnership Initiative in Vietnam and Peru, can provide important lessons learned for the development of the new transparency rules. NAMAs can serve as concrete building blocks for future Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement.

Accounting rules and procedures will dictate how progress is tracked for various possible types of mitigation contributions that might be included in the 2015 agreement and how their achievement will be determined. Without such rules, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to accurately track progress toward individual contributions as well as towards limiting warming to 2° C or below.

The report explores the components of a robust and rigorous accounting framework, lessons learned from existing accounting frame-works, and how such a framework can be developed for the 2015 agreement. The objective is to support the establishment of a sufficiently robust and rigorous common accounting framework for the 2015 agreement, including accounting rules for international transfers of units from marketbased mechanisms and the land sector.

The Paris Agreement aims to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels (and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C), but does not refer specifically to greenhouse gas emissions from the international maritime transport sector. This Report outlines the findings of a project commissioned by the Nordic Council of Ministers, focusing on opportunities for Nordic countries to achieve a transition to low-carbon shipping at national, regional and global scales. It is informed by discussions at the World Maritime University in Malmö in December 2016 between representatives of governments, businesses, NGOs and the research community. The Report presents a low-carbon roadmap for shipping with actions and outcomes concerning low-carbon technology, ship operations, finance, public policy, and public-private partnerships.

This report estimates fossil fuel subsidies to be around USD 425 billion. Such subsidies represent large lost opportunities for governments to invest in renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable development. Removal of consumer subsidies can lead to carbon emission reductions (6 to 8 per cent by 2050 globally), Reductions that can be improved further with a switch or a "SWAP" towards sustainable energy. This report describes the scale and impact of fossil fuel subsidies on sustainable development. It describes the SWAP concept to switch savings made from fossil fuel subsidy reform, towards sustainable energy, energy efficiency and safety nets. The report provides potential SWAP outlines for Bangladesh, Indonesia, Morocco and Zambia. "Making the Switch" was written for the Nordic Council Ministers by the Global Subsidies Initiative of IISD and Gaia Consulting.

The land-use sector serves key environmental and social functions and supports the livelihoods of around a half of the world’s population. Despite its importance, however, the climate regime fails to formulate a coherent vision or set of incentives for mitigation and adaptation from the sector. The negotiation of a future climate treaty that will take effect in 2020 presents a key opportunity to improve the current system and create an integrated accounting and incentive framework for adaptation and mitigation strategies across all land-uses. This report - conducted by Climate Focus together with UNIQUE forestry and land use - analyses the current status of the land-use sector under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, and formulates options for how various incentives and systems could be harmonized under a future climate treaty.

The Nordic Council of Ministers has set up the Nordic COP 15 Group to help achieve a successful outcome in the climate change negotiations at COP 15 in Copenhagen in December 2009. The Nordic COP 15 Group have identified key elements in the negotiations where efforts are needed to ensure a good outcome, i.e. adaptation to climate change, technolo-gy transfer, legal issues, sinks and deforestation. This report explore ways to adjust the current accounting rules on sinks into rules that would create better incen-tives for actively managing lands, in order to decrease the emission of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and/ or to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Different proposals for the treatment of the LULUCF-sector (Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry sector) are compared and analysed.

Local communities and indigenous peoples (LCIPs) have been involved in the implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 1992. In 2015, the Paris Agreement introduced a new element to strengthen LCIPs efforts to address and respond to climate change – the LCIP Platform. This report develops potential options for making the LCIP Platform operational. A facilitative working group, an expert group or a dialogue platform could enable further exchange of knowledge, promote capacity building and enhance the engagement of local communities and indigenous peoples in the UNFCCC process. Proposals provided in this report were discussed at an informal meeting held in February 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. The international meeting was attended by representatives of experts and negotiators involved in the development of the LCIP Platform.

The global carbon market currently faces a deep demand crisis. The consequent price fall reduces the incentive to make low-carbon investments and thus increases the risk of locking in carbon-intensive infrastructure. The global carbon market relies on ambitious climate policy and consists of a mosaic of different schemes. Despite the current lack of ambitious global climate policy, various market-based approaches are emerging around the world, indicating increasing scope and fragmentation of the carbon markets. This report, conducted by GreenStream together with Climate Focus, analyses the status and outlook of global carbon markets and identifies measures and circumstances how new demand for carbon credits could be created to strengthen global efforts to limit the global average temperature rise to 2°C, taking into account the trend towards fragmentation of carbon markets.

This paper explores possibilities to strengthen the global climate change negotiations by improving the efficiency of the negotiations process under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The negotiations are taking place against the backdrop of continuing growth of global greenhouse gas emissions and already observable impacts of climate change. Given the urgent and multifaceted nature of the climate change problem, the expanding international climate policy agenda and the various new institutions and processes created under the UNFCCC in recent years, the efficiency of the negotiations process is an important challenge. This working paper was commissioned by the Nordic Working Group for Global Climate Negotiations (NOAK) to serve as a discussion paper for a workshop “Strengthening the Global Climate Change Negotiations” that took place at the Nordic Council of Ministers in Copenhagen, Denmark, in April 2012. The paper was subsequently updated to reflect discussions at the workshop on the basis of the Chatham House rule. It aims to address the state-of-play in the UNFCCC negotiations, identify some of the main problems and develop concrete proposals to enhance the effectiveness of the climate regime. In doing so, the paper focuses on three main clusters of procedural issues: organization of the work, institutions exercising oversight of the negotiation process, and the decision-making of the COP. Inputs from outside the regime are also briefly addressed. The paper does not intend to give mature suggestions on the way forward, but rather, it seeks to identify issues and themes concerning the efficiency of the UNFCCC negotiations for further discussion.

This booklet presents actions taken by the Nordic countries to speed the transition to a sustainable low-carbon society. It shows how sustainable development is possible, with strong climate policies contributing to economic growth and job creation as well as environmental improvements. The Nordic countries successfully demonstrate how ambitious climate change mitigation targets and policies can be combined with high levels of human development.

This fact sheet illustrates the extensive climate support provided by the Nordic Countries for developing countries, which includes various kinds of grants, loans and guarantees, as well as vital technical assistance.

Women in the rural regions of developing countries suffer most from climate change, due to its impacts on their routine activities such as fetching water and growing crops. Since women are most affected, women need to participate in all climate actions and have access to resources and technologies designed to facilitate adaptation, otherwise gender inequality will worsen.

Meanwhile, choices largely made by women in both rich and poor countries related to feeding their families and running their homes have a considerable impact on global greenhouse gas emissions. Women can therefore play a vital role in mitigating climate change.

The Nordic Countries have actively integrated gender issues into international climate actions and policies and support many initiatives designed to make climate actions more gender-sensitive.

The NAMA Readiness Programme for Vietnam’s cement sector has been on-going since March 2014. It focuses on improving the energy efficiency of the country’s cement sector and mitigating the resulting carbon emissions. The Programme is expected to enable Vietnam to prepare for a full-scale Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) in the cement sector. The NAMA would count as a part of Vietnam’s contribution under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC ) and allow the sector to attract international support towards the implementation of the proposal.

If we aim to reduce global emissions in order to limit global warming to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, then the energy sector is of paramount importance. A critical change will be national fuel switching away from carbon-intensive sources and increased effort towards energy efficiency and sustainable energy. Subsidies and support from governments to fossil fuels encourage the opposite.

Many countries and regions are making this switch: from subsidising fossil fuels and towards investing in sustainable energy. This brochure describes how Ethiopia, Morocco, Peru and the Philippines have reformed their subsidies. It also describes how countries including Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have introduced innovative policy instruments to encourage switching towards  renewable and sustainable energy.

Signatories of Paris Agreement outlined their post-2020 climate actions, known as their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (I)NDCs. This study focuses on potential synergies between adaptation and mitigation in the (I)NDCs. It pays particular attention to the sectors of forestry, agriculture, energy and urban development. It draws on a review of climate change financing literature, and an analysis of the (I)NDCs and the financial and policy frameworks and programmes that make up global climate change financing structure, notably the texts of the Paris Agreement. The report contains recommendations for Nordic stakeholders to drive further synergies between mitigation and adaptation.

In recent years, global cooperative action and climate initiatives by non-state actors have proliferated greatly, and diverse actors from Nordic countries are active participants in this development. This report provides an overview of the Global Climate Action Agenda initiatives and maps out the various global and regional initiatives where Nordic actors, such as cities, regions, businesses, academia and governments are participating. The mapping includes also individual commitments from Nordic actors such as cities and regions. In addition to providing an overview of current Nordic participation, the project highlights important cooperative climate initiatives, which Nordic countries could consider joining in the future. The overview and mapping provide valuable information for the Nordic countries, and helps to enhance the visibility of Nordic involvement in global climate action.

The Nordic Partnership Initiative on Up-Scaled Mitigation Action (NPI) has been established in December 2011 to support climate change mitigation efforts in developing countries. The NPI is funded by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and implemented in co-operation with Peru and Vietnam.

The Nordic Partnership Initiative on Up-Scaled Mitigation Action (NPI) has been established in December 2011 to support climate change mitigation efforts in developing countries. The NPI is funded by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and implemented in co-operation with Peru and Vietnam.