EU expects solid progress on Paris Agreement implementation at UN climate conference in Bonn

The EU expects this year’s UN climate conference (COP23) to reaffirm once again the international community’s commitment to stepping up the global response to climate change and achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. Following the entry into force of the historic agreement last year, elaborating its implementing guidelines is now a key focus. Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Cañete said: “The Paris Agreement has set the direction of travel for the global transition to a modern low-carbon economy. The increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events we are witnessing across the world are a stark reminder of the urgency of the challenges we face. Now is the time to translate ambition into action and speed up implementation. COP23 will be a key moment to ensure that we are on track to meet our first deadline: completing the Paris work programme by 2018.” This year’s Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23), presided over by Fiji, is taking place from 6-17 November 2017 in Bonn, Germany. The EU expects the conference to demonstrate clear progress on the development of the technical rules and guidelines for implementing the provisions of the Paris Agreement, for example on the transparency framework and the 5-year ambition cycle aimed at helping countries make progressively more ambitious contributions. The work programme is due to be adopted at the 2018 UN climate conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland. Read entire press release and MEMO.