United Nations

Attending sessions
Article 7, paragraph 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change provides that representatives of the United Nations system may be represented as observers at sessions.  In order to attend sessions representatives of UN bodies need to be officially nominated by the head of that body to the Executive Secretary of the secretariat.

• Mandate for admission: Article 7, paragraph 6 English Español Français
• The UN system and organizational chart
• Rio Conventions
• Key UN system organizations with a climate change agenda: UNCTAD, UNDP, UNEP, UNITAR, UNU, ISDR, WMO, WMO/IPCC, UNIDO, GEF, World Bank group and others

Attending sessions
Intergovernmental organizations which are not part of the UN system need to apply for admission in order to attend sessions.

Admission: Article 7, paragraph 6, of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change provides for the admission of intergovernmental organizations to sessions of the Convention bodies as observers.  New applicant organizations are formally admitted by the Conference of the Parties (COP) following the successful completion of the admission process.  Admission to the Conference of the Parties also applies to the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.  Once an organization is admitted, its representatives may attend sessions of the Convention bodies as observers.

Once an organization is admitted, its representatives may attend sessions of the Convention bodies as observers.   Those observer organizations that have been admitted to a COP in the past or provisionally admitted to the SBs do not need to reapply for admission.

Review process: The deadline for application for provisional admission at SB 32 has closed. Please contact us via email at cool@unfccc.int by 19 March 2010 if you have not received any correspondence from us regarding your application.  The review process will take some time and notice of provisional admission will be sent via email to applicant organizations in April 2010. 

The deadline for applications for admission in time for COP 16 is revised to 15 March 2010 from 31 April 2010 due to the number of additional sessions.

Attendance: Admission is not the only way to attend a COP.  If your organization is not admitted and has missed the deadline for admission, the representatives of your organization can be nominated to attend a COP by an already admitted observer organization who agrees to nominate them.  Visibility will be given to the name of the nominated organizations on the official list of participants under the name of the nominating organization.  The contact details of the admitted observer organizations are available here. 

For more information, please contact cool@unfccc.int

• Mandate for admission: Article 7, paragraph 6 English Español Français
• Single admission process for COP and CMP Decision 36/CMP.1 (75 kB) (paragraph 2c )
• Standard admission process English (172 kB) Español (21 kB) Français (148 kB)
• Contact details form English
• How I may attend sessions (46 kB)
• List of admitted organizations

Participating effectively

• Rules of procedure (Convention)
• Providing input under the SBSTA agenda item "Cooperation with relevant international organizations"
• Making statements at the COP and CMP by the head of the organization in the context of the high level segment
• Organizing a side event, an exhibit or a press briefing
• Interacting with other members of the climate change community

Observer Organizations Liaison Officer
Megumi Endo
Climate Change secretariat
P.O. Box 260 124
D 53153 Bonn, Germany
Tel. +49 228 815 1523
Fax. +49 228 815 1999
cool@unfccc.int