Negotiating from the Front: From Warsaw to Paris

 30th Oct 2013

Clean Energy Nepal on behalf of Climate Change Network Nepal organized Consultation Workshop to deliberate on Nepal's expectation from the 19th Conference of the Parties (COP19) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that is being held in Warsaw, Poland from 11-22 November, 2013.

The program focus on the latest update in the UNFCCC negotiations and Nepal's preparation from the civil society perspective.

In the workshop, Mr. Sunil Acharya presented the pre-view of  issues and agenda for negotiation in upcoming COP highlighting the major updates so far. The workshop was then followed by panel discussion in different issues. Mr. Manjeet Dhakal one of the Core Negotiating Team member presented on the Ad hoc Working Group on Durban Platform for enhanced action (ADP) and gave the latest update going on for the climate agreement in Paris, France in 2015. Ramesh Bhusal, another Core Negotiating Team member presented with  the issue of equity and state that "Issue of equity is a prominent issue in the UNFCCC negotiation and whole negotiation process is revolving around it"

Mr. Batu Krishna Upreti, LEG Vice-Chair and Expert member- Climate Change Council presented on Adaptation, loss and Damage and Agriculture. He stated that Adaptation as always should be the priority issue for the country like Nepal and Issue of Loss and Damage is more associated with liability and compensation.  So as a least developing country, we need to stress on the insurance premium and prioritize this issue as most of our farmer are unable to pay for the insurance. He further state that In this conference Nepal is participating both as a LDC chair representing 49 LDCs and as a Nepal and the challenge lies on how we are representing and prioritizing our national issues.

Speaking on the finance issue, Mr. Dipesh Chapagain explained that issue of finance has become a hot topic in the UNFCCC negotiation. Many basket funds have been created but they are empty. So finance issue have been frequently raised by LDCs and other major negotiating block as it has been clearly stated in the article 4.9 of the convention. It is expected that major finance issue will be resolved in this COP so this COP is often believed to be a Finance COP or Finance pledging COP.

Mr. Ugan Manandhar presented on Mitigation and REDD plus and Low carbon strategy. Dealing with the Climate Change means mitigation itself. Developed countries should mitigate otherwise the cost of adaptation will scale up and it will be harder in the days to come. Several mitigation mechanism have been established since the 1992 summit. Kyoto protocol is a milestone up to this time but it is not successful to cut down the emission because of its nature.  Mitigation targets before 2020 will be the issue of negotiation this time in this conference since for the period of after 2020 another legally binding documented is expected to developed  and implemented.

The workshop was attended by 54 participants from diverse background including development worker, youth, academician, climate change expert, government officials, media and was successful in bringing the key ask for the road to Paris agreement and Nepal's preparation and expectation from this COP.

The program was supported by Oxfam and European Union.