6 November 1996
ENGLISH ONLY
UNITED NATIONS FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Subsidiary Body for Implementation
Fourth session
Geneva, 10 - 11 December 1996
The Conference of the Parties, at its second session, by its decision 13/CP.2,
paragraph 1, decided to refer the text of the annex on the
determination of funding necessary and available for the
implementation of the Convention, adopted by the Council of the
Global Environment Facility, and the draft annex submitted by the
Group of 77 and China (FCCC/SBI/1996/L.4) for consideration by the
Subsidiary Body for Implementation at its fourth
session.
The Executive Secretary, in his communication of 2 August 1996 to the
permanent missions, advised Parties that the deadline for submission had been set for
30 September 1996.
Contributions have since been received from the Gambia, Ireland
(on behalf of the European Community and its member States), and the
United States of America. In accordance with the procedure for
miscellaneous documents, these submissions are attached and
reproduced in the language in which they were received and without
formal editing.
FCCC/SBI/1996/MISC.1
Paper No.
Page
1. Gambia 3
2. Ireland (on behalf of the European Community and
its member States) 4
3. United States of America 5
MOU between the Conference of the Parties and the Global
Environment Facility (GEF). The Annex on the determination of funding
necessary and qualified for the implementation of the
Convention.
The Gambia is calling for specific reference to GEF funding of
full agreed costs of national communications, as well as full
incremental costs of other measures in support of FCCC implementation
under article 4.1 and costs of adaptation to the adverse effects of
climate change.
We object to the conditionalities placed on the GEF funding
approval, which states that "all guidelines on the GEF funding should
come from GEF and not the COP"; rather, the guidelines or any
conditionalities should, ideally, come from the COP under the
guidance of SBI.
Parties were invited to submit comments to the FCCC Secretariat on the annex to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Conference of the Parties and the GEF.
The EU notes that Parties have already reached agreement in the
forum of the Council of the GEF on the scope and format of the MOU
and on the adoption of the Annex to the MOU. At this stage, the EU is
of the view that the MOU and the Annex thereto should be adopted to
allow all Parties to progress to the implementation of the MOU and
Annex, rather than re-opening debates which have already been brought
to a satisfactory conclusion.
Accordingly, the EU expresses its support for the joint
secretariats' text as it stands.
By its prior decision (in August 1995), the Subsidiary Body on
Implementation (SBI) agreed to consider the annex to the Memorandum
of Understanding after the annex was approved by the Council of the
Global Environment Facility (GEF). The SBI thus anticipated that
substantive negotiation of the annex would take place in the GEF
Council.
Substantive negotiations over Memorandum of Understanding (MOU),
including the issue of determination of funding, took place over the
course of several meetings of the GEF Council. Based on this process,
as well as considerable joint work by the secretariats, a draft of
the annex was considered by the Council, further revised, and then
approved at the Council's meeting in April 1996. All governments that
have ratified the Convention are represented on the GEF Council,
either directly or through established constituencies. Like the MOU
itself, the annex to the MOU has been approved in the GEF Council by
governments that take part in the work of the
Convention.
For these reasons, proposals made at the SBI's meeting in July
1996 for further amendments to the annex were surprising, and they
raise significant procedural and substantive concerns. If such
amendments were agreed by the SBI, they would require further
consideration by the GEF Council, which already amended and approved
the annex developed by the two secretariats; and it is not clear
where this process would end.
The United States thus holds the view that the proposed annex,
developed jointly by the two secretariats in response to the SBI's
request in August 1995 and negotiated in and approved by the GEF
Council in April 1996, should be adopted by the SBI without further
amendment.
If the SBI wishes to take note of concerns raised by governments
with respect to the annex, it could do so and refer them to the GEF
Council, where they could be addressed in the same forum in which
substantive negotiations over the annex took place.