CAN Submission on the Design of the Modalities for the Global Stocktake, September 2017

CAN welcomes the opportunity to share its views on the design of the modalities of the global stocktake of the Paris Agreement in advance of the pre-sessional round table on Agenda Item 6 of the APA and COP 23. Article 14 of the Paris Agreement mandates the periodic assessment of collective progress toward meeting the purpose and long-term goals of the Agreement to be done in a comprehensive and facilitative manner, considering mitigation, adaptation and the means of implementation and support, and in the light of equity and the best available science. The outcome of this stocktake shall inform Parties in updating and enhancing their actions and support as well as enhancing international cooperation for climate action.

Summary

In CAN’s view, there are four major purposes of the Global Stocktake (GST). The first is to produce collective assessments that help individual Parties identify next steps. The second is to identify implementation gaps at global, regional and national levels. The third is to create space for Parties to exchange views about future collaboration and cooperative action and the fourth is to send a strong signal to governments to increase ambition.  

In addition, there are key overarching issues that Parties need to consider carefully. One of them is the issue of scope. The narrow or broad interpretation of the scope of the Global Stocktake has implications for various aspects of the design of the global stocktake such as phases, workstreams, inputs, etc. The second overarching issue is phases and workstreams. Phases are necessary so that different types of analysis or discussion can take place over a period of time. CAN believes that having multiple phases is important and that there should be, at a minimum, a distinct technical or preparatory phase and a political or culminating phase. In the meantime, workstreams could be organized around the long-term goals or thematic pillars identified in Article 14. Neither would capture all the issues that should be discussed in the global stocktake, so additional work streams might need to be considered. The third overarching issue is participation. Civil society participation has been proven to result in better policy making, effective and sustainable implementation as well as robust accountability.

For specific themes, CAN believes both financial flows and means of implementation (MoI) must be considered within the GST. However, CAN would also like to stress that having a standalone workstream on the means of implementation and financial flows assessment does not mean that the topic cannot be discussed in other workstreams. On the contrary, means of implementation and financial flows needs to be addressed in the context of mitigation and adaptation as well. On equity, it is CAN’s understanding that “equity” refers to equity and differentiation between countries. As an overarching principle, equity considerations must guide the work in all global stocktake workstreams. By looking into what Parties actually proposed in their NDCs in terms of equity, a common Equity Reference Framework would emerge from parties’ own submissions, which parties could then utilize and apply in their national determination processes. Overall, considering equity in the global stocktake based on submissions must result in outcomes that allow Parties, civil society and other stakeholders to assess whether contributions are of comparable effort to other Parties. The purpose is to turn the global stocktake into a robust ambition ratchet where parties can determine whether they are doing enough relative to their peers based on equity criteria, across mitigation, adaptation and provision of means of implementation and support. Lastly on loss and damage, in the absence of a specific mandate, this issue could be considered in the global stocktake based on a number of existing generic provisions of the Paris Agreement. CAN believes that an assessment of progress towards the long-term goals of the Paris Agreement necessitates space for discussion and the provision of inputs on loss and damage to be done in a constructive manner.

 

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