Quick Stop on Cancun COP- December 7

Katherine Hamilton on December 8, 2010 Comment

LULUCF

Negotiators accepted saturday's non-paper as a basis for discussions, and began to discuss and clarify text without major movements with the exception of agreement on issues related to harvested wood products. Some stakeholders say an agreement is still possible in Cancun on LULUCF, others doubt if consensus can be reached by Friday.

REDD+

The final draft of the Partnership's 2011-2012 Work Program was finally released Tuesday (delayed from scheduled release Tuesday at 8pm). A review of the latest Work Program reveals that the significant cuts to safeguard language persist. In a confusing twist, the text from the 2010 Work Program, which was already approved during the Partnership's last meeting in Nagoya, Japan has now been interspersed throughout the 2011-2012 final draft, ballooning the size of the document from its earlier 10-page version up to 25-pages. Partners, several of whom reported to Ecosystem Marketplace that they had not had time to review the drafts, will now have until Wednesday 8pm to voice an objection to the Work Program via e-mail, otherwise it will be approved as currently written.

NAMAs

On Tuesday morning, parties focused on two draft texts related to developed and developing country mitigation, formally and through informal consultations throughout the day. Parties noted the need to reconcile the texts not only with each other but also with other texts coming out of the LCA track. Parties grappled with several issues - should NAMAs for each country be detailed as an annex to a decision Cancun (if indeed there is one)? Should they be written as hard actions or commitments? Can a framework be devised for comparing these commitments/actions? Despite these questions, some parties expressed optimism about the emergence of decision text in this track and its readiness to enter full negotiations mode.

Grab Bag

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) also unveiled the United States government's REDD+ Strategy at a side-event in Cancun Tuesday afternoon. You can view the Strategy posted on the USAID website here (PDF).