Feb. 18, 2019 – The secretariat of UN Climate Change has published an overview of the Katowice Climate Package, adopted at the UN Climate Change Conference COP24 in Katowice last December.

The package constitutes the guidelines for the implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

The guidelines establish an effective international system for promoting and tracking progress while empowering countries to build national systems for implementing the agreement.

“The Katowice outcome is a breakthrough that all governments can be proud of! It strengthens the Paris Agreement and it opens the doors for the implementation of climate action across the globe,” Patricia Espinosa, the UN’s Climate Chief, underlined.

The package sets out the essential guidelines and procedures that will make the Paris Agreement operational.

The successful adoption of well-crafted implementation guidelines promises to build greater trust and to strengthen international cooperation on one of the greatest challenges of our times:  transitioning to a low-emissions, climate-resilient world.

At the same time, the guidelines respect the different capabilities and socio-economic realities of each country while providing the foundation for ever-increasing ambition with respect to climate action.

See the overview: https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/katowice-climate-package

With 197 Parties, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has near universal membership and is the parent treaty of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement. The main aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep a global average temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The UNFCCC is also the parent treaty of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The ultimate objective of all agreements under the UNFCCC is to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system, in a time frame which allows ecosystems to adapt naturally and enables sustainable development.