The Conference of the Parties (COP), by its decision 11/CP.9, invited the sponsoring agencies of the Global Climate Observing System, and in particular those of the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS), in consultation with other international or intergovernmental agencies, to develop a framework for the preparation of guidance materials, standards and reporting guidelines for terrestrial observing systems for climate and to submit a progress report on this issue to the COP at its eleventh session. This document contains the above-mentioned progress report from the GTOS secretariat. In accordance with the procedure for miscellaneous documents, this submission is reproduced in the language in which it was received and without formal editing