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 of bodies and organizations
• 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.

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.  The contact details of the admitted observer organizations are available here. 

Notification: Official notification of sessions will be posted on our website three months prior to the start date when sessions are known in advance.  It is the responsibility of the admitted observer organization to check for notification updates.  You can find current information at http://unfccc.int.  On the left side of the screen click on Parties & Observers, then click on Notifications.

Nomination: UNFCCC has launched an online registration system for all sessions.  Once the notification for a session has been posted, the designated contact point (DCP) of the admitted observer organization will have approximately four weeks in which to nominate names via the online registration system.  No nominations will be accepted after the deadline which will be set in the notification.  Information about the online registration system can be found at  https://onlinereg.unfccc.int/  

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 (198 kB) Español (21 kB) Français (148 kB)
• Contact details form English (153 kB)
• 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