Climate – Get the Big Picture, A Guide to the UNFCCC and its Processes

19 November 2015

Resource

The secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change has launched a new interactive guide to help explain the climate change regime and its intergovernmental process to a wide audience ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris.

United Nations climate change conferences have grown over the past two decades into the largest annual conferences currently held under the auspices of the United Nations.

The intergovernmental negotiations have likewise become increasingly complex and involve an ever-increasing number of officials from governments all over the world, at all levels, as well as huge numbers of representatives from civil society and the global news media.

The guide seeks to provide the ‘big picture’ of the UN climate change regime. In particular, it tries to explain the why, what and how – for example why countries came together to combat climate change, what issues are covered by the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol.

Presenting Climate –Get the Big Picture

Editorial by Dan Bondi Ogolla, UNFCCC Legal Affairs Coordinator

Have you ever wondered what the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol do? What mitigation and adaptation action really mean? What governments do at the annual Conferences of the Parties?

You are not alone. The UN climate change regime is essential if the world is to have a sustainable future but it is also a complex process. As the world’s attention shifts to the Paris Conference in December, where governments are due to reach a new climate change agreement, many people will be asking those kinds of questions and seeking more information on climate change: Why is there a need to act? What is my government doing? What is the international community doing?

To help answer some of those questions and demystify the UN climate change process, the UNFCCC secretariat, through the generous support of the Government of Singapore, has launched a new interactive guide to help explain the climate change regime and its intergovernmental process. The guide seeks to provide the ‘big picture’ of the UN climate change regime. In particular, it tries to explain the why, what and how: why countries came together to combat climate change, what issues are covered by the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol, and how the intergovernmental negotiation process works.

The guide walks the newcomer through the various issues covered by the regime, such as mitigation, adaptation, technology development and transfer, as well as finance, in order to gain a better understanding of the global efforts Parties are making to combat and adapt to climate change. The guide also explains the negotiation processes where Parties to the UNFCCC and its Kyoto Protocol come together in various bodies to review efforts and decide on next steps.

As well as a summary and interactive graphics, each section contains a ‘learn more’ box that directs the reader to where more detailed information on an issue can be found. In doing so, it will hopefully open up the extensive information on climate change on the UNFCCC website to a bigger audience

We hope the guide will be a valuable resource to all of those who want to find out more about the UN climate change regime and that it will increase knowledge and ownership of climate change issues that are of such fundamental importance to us all.