New documents capturing recent progress and advances made towards a new universal climate agreement in Paris in 2015 were issued today.

One of the papers covers elements of that draft agreement which will form a central part of the negotiations at the UN climate convention conference in Lima in a few weeks’ time.

Another contains a draft decision on how countries plan to raise ambition ‘pre-2020’ in advance of the Paris agreement coming into effect as well as providing greater clarity on the kinds of information governments or Parties to the convention will provide as they submit their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to the Paris agreement.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), thanked Kishan Kumarsingh and Artur Runge-Metzger - the co-chairs of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) - for their hard work to capture the progress governments are making in shaping the new agreement.

She said “much will be learned from country announcements in respect to the INDCs that we expect to come forward soon and certainly over the next few months”.

“Parties have agreed to adopt a new universal climate agreement in Paris in December 2015 to come into effect in 2020. They have also recognized the need to raise ambition up to 2020—one of the key outcomes in Lima needs to be a balanced and coherent draft agreement: these documents serve as a good foundation for that”.

“I hope that Parties will carefully study the new, more advanced elements contained here. What is emerging now is a clearer and more coherent picture of the Paris agreement 2015”, she said.

“What is gratifying is that instead of waiting to the last minute, governments are coming forward with creative and cooperative suggestions which alongside the momentum for change happening in every corner of the globe, bodes well for the next 12 months,” said Ms Figueres.

The new documents are available here.

The 20th session of the Conference of the Parties and the 10th session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol opens on 1 December in the Peruvian capital.