GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE NEGOTIATION AT THE COP25 AND ITS RELEVANCE FOR BANGLADESH

In December 2019, nearly 27000 delegates convened in the Spanish capital for the 25th annual Climate Conference (COP25) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).1 The conference took place politically in Chile but physically in Madrid. As always, expectations abounded. The conference delivered the final “rulebook” of the Paris Agreement, the operating manual for a global carbon market. It was also supposed to send a strong signal on increased ambition, ahead of countries revising the climate targets and policies set out in their “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDCs) in 2020. The Madrid Climate Conference failed to deliver on both accounts under “Article 6” of the deal. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “the international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance to tackle the climate crisis.” The world has experienced the deleterious effects of climate change over  

Sufia Khanom, PhD is Senior Research Fellow at Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies

(BIISS). Her e-mail address is: sufia@biiss.org
© Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS), 2021.
1
 “COP25 Documents”, available at https://unfccc.int/event/cop-25#eq-22, accessed on 25 May 2021. 

the last two years. Various global climate risk reports indicated that global extreme climatic events such as floods, landslides, drought, forest fires, and cyclones affected Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe, Australia, and Asia. These reports looked at four indicators, e.g., death toll, number of events, loss of property, and gross domestic product (GDP). According to these reports, the total loss suffered between 1999 and 2018 amounted to around US$ 3.54 trillion. Hundreds were killed, and nearly 50 million people in different countries were affected.2 These destroyed infrastructures, communication networks, habitation, and created severe food insecurity. However, there is no clear pathway towards the enhanced ambition of climate targets in 2020 and negotiations on carbon markets broke down again.

The conference took the pulse of waning global ambition committed at “Climate Ambition Alliance”3 and conducted a timid headcount on which countries were considering stepping up their efforts in 2020. The result was sobering. Negotiators achieved the bare minimum to avoid outright failure and embarrassment. The primary negotiated outcome of the COP25 was the ‘Chile-Madrid Time of Action’. It is an aspirational document that comes hot with frustration and lukewarm in content. After some last-minute back and forth, the parties could agree only to repeat previous decisions and “re-emphasize[s] with serious concern the urgent need to address the significant gap between the aggregate effect of the Parties’ mitigation efforts in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020”. The decision text also stresses the relevance of “pre-2020 implementation and ambition” and different initiatives and partnerships for global action, and the role of nonparty stakeholders in “contributing to progress”. However, there is no clear call to formulate more ambitious NDCs-neither an agreement on long-term finance nor common NDC timeframes and reporting guidelines. Adaptation, a central concern of the developing countries, was absent from the agenda and outsourced to constituted bodies. Besides, the COP did not agree to “welcome” recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports, which were merely “taken note of”. 

From Bangladesh’s perspective, the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, attended a three-day visit for the “Head of State and Government Summit” of the COP25 and called for urgent action to stave off climate threats to create a world livable  

2

 A. Raftery, Alec S. Zimmer, D. Frierson, and R. Startz, Peiran Liu, “Less than 2°C warming by 2100 unlikely”,
Nature Climate Change, Vol. 7, No. 9, 2017, pp. 637–641. 3
 The ‘Climate Ambition Alliance’ was formulated to accelerate the transformation needed to meet the goals of
the Paris Agreement at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit in September 2019. The Alliance
was created to bring together nations that committed to upscaling their action in 2020 and those working
towards achieving net-zero carbon dioxide emissions in their countries by 2050. The 59 initial commitments
under the Alliance came mostly from smaller countries that pledged to submit more ambitious NDCs,
contributing not much more than ten per cent of global emissions. By the end of the Madrid conference, many
European and a few middle-income countries had joined the Alliance and committed to submitting new and
more ambitious NDCs in 2020.  

for the future generation.4 She spoke as the leader of one of the most vulnerable nations at the conference. The Prime Minister accepted Marshall Island’s President Hilda Heine’s proposal to lead the “Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF)” scheduled in 2020. She joined a general roundtable titled, “National Plans to Increase Ambition by 2020” and later joined another dialogue titled, “Enhancing Action Together” between governments and civil society.5 She stressed that the ongoing Rohingya refugee crisis is aggravating the challenge faced by Bangladesh to tackle the imminent threat of climate change. The Prime Minister also urged the international community to step up efforts to resolve the humanitarian crisis by repatriating them to their homeland Myanmar. In a meeting with her Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte, she sought the Netherlands’ help to send back the Rohingya refugees. European Parliament President David-Maria Sassoil assured her of continuing cooperation to tackle the effects of climate change. She also paid a courtesy call on Spanish President Pedro Sánchez before joining a reception hosted by King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano at the royal palace.6 

Against this backdrop, this paper discusses the main outcomes and fault lines of the COP25, its relevance to Bangladesh regarding global climate change negotiation and put them in the context of implementation for the Paris Agreement. It is qualitative in nature and based on secondary literature, including various journal articles, books, newspapers, and relevant websites. The paper is divided into six sections, including the introduction and conclusion. The second section highlights the issues and outcomes of the COP25. The significance of the COP25 to Bangladesh as a climate-vulnerable country has been explored in the third section. The fourth section identifies the deadlocks and drawbacks of global climate change negotiations for the momentum of this process. Postponing of COP26 for the year 2020 has a significant impact on climate negotiation discussed in section five. The paper concludes with some policy suggestions for enhancing the effectiveness of global climate negotiations.

The COP25 aimed to develop guidelines on how international carbon markets would work (Article 6 of the Paris Agreement). Other focus areas included  

4

 “PM returns home after joining COP25”, The Daily Star, 04 December 2019, available at https://www.
thedailystar.net/country/news/pm-returns-home-after-joining-cop25-1835548, accessed on 12 June 2020.
5
 “PM returns home after attending COP 25”, The Dhaka Tribune, O4 December 2019, available at https://
www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/dhaka/2019/12/04/pm-returns-home-after-attending-cop25, accessed on
12 June 2020.
6
 Golam Murtaza Dhruba, “Hasina returns to Dhaka after attending COP25 climate summit in Madrid”, The
bdnews24.com, 04 December 2019, available at https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2019/12/04/hasina-returnsto-dhaka-after-attending-cop25-climate-summit-in-madrid, accessed on 12 June 2020. 

adaptation to climate impacts, loss and damage suffered by developing nations due to climate change, finance for decarbonization and more (for a country-specific position, please see the Annexure). 

The increase of “ambition” or the submission of recent NDCs was not officially on the agenda of the COP25. The Chilean Presidency supported the latest and more ambitious NDCs as a priority and invested significant political capital in discovering new commitments recognizing the requirement to accelerate the action. By the tip of the COP, the alliance brought 73 countries to plan to submit enhanced NDCs in 2020 and work towards net zero emissions by 2050.7 However, the alliance is constituted mainly of countries with small contributions to the world’s overall emissions. None of the highest ten emitters is an element of the alliance or has independently confirmed that it would submit a more ambitious NDC this year.8 It infers that the negotiations on common NDC timeframes also failed. Common timeframes would also increase the comparability and overall transparency of efforts and facilitate worldwide stocktaking. Parties debated various options of timeframes differentiated along developing and developed countries, or along with activity, but did not agree on any and postponed the choice to COP26. 

Finance was shaping and connecting the various negotiations topics from adaptation, to loss and damage, and markets. Political leaders cannot reasonably arrange to raise ambition if there is no clarity on funding. What is true at the national level is valid at the international level, and many developing countries expressed disappointment by the amount and disbursements of climate finance commitments reiterated by the Paris Agreement.9 A failure to mobilize US$ 100 billion in funding for developed countries by 2020 would impact the capacity of developing countries to deliver on their climate change strategies. Moreover, it would undoubtedly be a bad omen for international climate change cooperation at large. The negotiation atmosphere at the COP25 in Madrid was tense and developing countries drew the main target to the failure to meet pre-2020 commitments.  

7 “UNFCC, External Press Release” 11 December 2019, available at https://sdg.iisd.org/news/chile-launchesclimate-ambition-alliance/, accessed on 12 June 2020. 8 Mexico and Argentina are the only countries among the 30 largest emitters that are part of the alliance and have committed to submit a new NDC in 2020. 9 For a summary of COP24 and the Paris Rulebook, See Also, Charlotte Streck, Moritz von Unger, and Nicole Krämer, “From Paris to Katowice: cop-24 Tackles the Paris Rulebook”, Journal for European Environmental &Planning Law, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2019, pp. 165-190.  

The COP25 saw few new climate finance commitments from countries. Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Poland, Norway, and Switzerland made new pledges for the Adaptation Fund, in a total amount of about US$ 90 million. These funds are much needed and welcome but could do little to close the 2020 funding gap.

Trump administration left the Paris deal just a day after the general elections on 04 November 2020. However, US President Joe Biden announced an ambitious plan to tackle climate change since being appointed President. He signed the most significant executive orders on the first day at the office under which issues regarding climate change were one of them. Mr. Baiden has already written to the UN requesting that the US will re-join the agreement. He also proposed a US$ 2 trillion spending plan to deal with climate change that included promoting clean energy and climatefriendly infrastructure during his campaign for the presidential elections.

The official discussion around finance focussed on guidance for operational entities of the financial mechanism of the UNFCC and the Paris Agreement, the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility,10 and the Standing Committee on Finance. The respective decisions include several useful instructions and clarifications, including for Standing Committee on Finance to conduct additional analytical work on climate finance flows and needs of the developing countries. The decision on the Standing Committee makes only the narrowest suggestions of what the Standing Committee should look at in the future (for example, progress assessment on long-term finance such as the US$ 100 billion goal for 2020). It is fitting that parties ultimately failed to agree on the prolongation of their work on long-term climate finance after 2020.11 

The newly established Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action, which is an assembly of 52 finance ministers from developing and industrialized countries, came together in Madrid for its third meeting in less than seven months. The Coalition pledged to align national budget portfolios with the Paris Agreement commitments and to work towards effective carbon pricing. At COP25, it unveiled a detailed work plan named, “Santiago Action Plan”.12 Bringing finance ministers  

10 OECD, “Climate Finance Provided and Mobilized by Developed Countries in 2013–2017, puts the latest

available figures (for 2017) at 71.2 billion US$”, available at https://read. oecd-ilibrary.org/environment/climatefinance-provided-and-mobilised-by-developed- countries-in-2013-17_39faf4a7-en#page1, accessed on 12 June
2020; Barbara Buchner, Alex Clark, Angela Falconer, Rob Macquarie, Chavi Meattle, Rowena Tolentino, and
Cooper Wetherbee, “Global Landscape of Climate Finance 2019”, available at https://climatepolicyinitiative.org/
wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2019-Global-Landscape-of-Climate-Finance.pdf, accessed on 12 June 2020.
11 Coalition of Finance Ministers for Finance Action, “Helsinki Principles 2019”, available at http://pubdocs.
worldbank.org/en/646831555088732759/FM-Coalition-Brochure-final-v3.pdf, accessed on 11 June 2019.
12 The Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Action, “Overview of the Santiago Action Plan”, available
athttps://www.cape4financeministry.org/sites/cape/files/inline-files/Overview%20-% 20Santiago%20
Action%20Plan.pdf. accessed on 10 June 2019. 

to the negotiation table may prove to be a game-changer as environment ministries’ lack of leverage over those sitting on the public purse has long been criticized.

It has been a regular negotiation item since the Warsaw COP. The very concept, however, can be traced to the origins of climate change cooperation. In 1991, during negotiations of the UNFCC, several Small Islands Developing States (SIDS) presented a submission on the need for an insurance pool to compensate vulnerable nations for the impacts of sea-level rise.13 The concept also has profound legal connotations. It could point to an interpretation whereby ambition and legal responsibility would be linked. A country that lags in ambition to reign in its national emissions may be found legally responsible for actual damages caused by the climate crisis. The legal implications of recognized international no-harm principles for climate change cooperation are far from settled. Still, negotiations around the subject are contentious within the UNFCCC and since 2015 within the Paris Agreement.14

The Paris Agreement gave the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) treaty recognition15 and placed it under the authority of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA). However, the mechanism still lacks operationalization in institutional responsibilities, business processes and, importantly, finance. Developing countries have been trying to move these negotiation topics forward with little success. The Madrid decision improved the mechanism by adding considerable detail to the rationale and its overall purpose.16 It recommends measures to streamline loss and damage in other workstreams of the UNFCC and Paris Agreement17 and requests the thematic expert groups to develop technical guidelines on issues, e.g., risk assessments and monitoring systems, and on how developing countries can access finance.18 However, it falls short responding to the demand of developing countries to establish an “implementation arm” of the WIM that would feature technical and financial facilities to support developing  

13 For historic references, See Also, Elisa Calliari, Swenja Surminski, and Jaroslav Mysiak, “The Politics of
(and Behind) the unfccc’s Loss and Damage Mechanism”, in Reinhard Mechler, Laurens M. Bouwer, Thomas
Schinko Swenja Surminski JoAnne, and Linnerooth-Bayer, (eds.), Loss and Damage from Climate Change:
Concepts, Methods and Policy Options, Switzerland: Springer, 2019, pp. 155-178. 14 Florentina Simlinger and Benoit Mayer, “Legal Responses to Climate Change Induced Loss and Damage”,
in Reinhard Mechler, Laurens M. Bouwer, Thomas Schinko Swenja Surminski JoAnne, and Linnerooth-Bayer
(eds.), Loss and Damage from Climate Change: Concepts, Methods and Policy Options, Switzerland: Springer,
2019, pp. 179-203. 15 Article 8.2 Paris Agreement.
16 Draft decision -/cma.2: Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage associated with Climate
Change Impacts and its 2019 review. fccc/PA/cma/2019/L.7.
17 Draft decision -/cma.2, para. 18-20.
18 Draft decision -/cma.2, para. 18-25. 

countries’ needs and complement the current Executive Committee, the political branch of the WIM.19 Instead, it establishes the “Santiago Network for Averting, Minimizing, and Addressing Loss and Damage” to catalyze the technical assistance of relevant organizations for the implementation of relevant measures to vulnerable countries.20

In Madrid, negotiators failed to deliver on operationalizing Article 6, a task that was left unfinished at the COP24 in Katowice in 2018.21 The formal subject of Article 6 is voluntary international cooperation between the parties in achieving their Paris Agreement pledges. Informally, Article 6 is better known as the (carbon) “markets and non-markets” Article. The reasons for failure are readily identifiable. Previously, in the conference three high-level issues were already identified as the crunch issues that ultimately prevented agreement: (a) the transition of activities and units generated under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to the Paris context; (b) the requirement to perform “corresponding adjustments” to units issued under the Article 6.4 mechanism; and (c) the application of a “share of proceeds” for adaptation finance to cooperative approaches.

Negotiators disagreed on banning countries’ ability to carry over the old Kyoto Protocol units for meeting Paris Agreement NDCs. Particularly India and Brazil argued for permitting old (currently essentially worthless) CDM credits, while most countries have no intention of using such old units to meet their emission targets. Australia even argued for the carry-over of excess Assigned Amount Units held by countries that over-achieved their (rather unambitious) Kyoto Protocol mitigation targets.22

Another crunch issue is avoiding the double-counting of emission reductions and removals against more than one NDC. In Madrid, developing countries want to apply the “share of proceeds”, a fee levied on emission credits to benefit adaptation activities, to both Article 6.2 and Article 6.4 transactions. While recognizing the need for predictable finance for adaptation, developed countries want to limit the applicability of a mechanical fee to Article 6.4.   

19 Earth Negotiations Bulletin. (n.d.). Summary of the Chile/M. 20 Draft decision -/cma.2, para. 43.

21 Charlotte Streck, Moritz von Unger, and Nicole Krämer, op. cit.
22 Tim Baxter, “The Transfer of Credit from Kyoto to Paris” Tim’s Environment, 28 December 2018, available
at https://timsenvironment.wordpress.com/the-transfer -of-credit-from-kyoto-to-paris-explaining-kyoto-creditsaustralia-and-the-emissions- budget-for-paris-part-3/, accessed on 26 January 2020.

Aside from these core issues, a range of other technically complex topics proved similarly difficult to resolve. This included accounting approaches for corresponding adjustments towards countries’ NDCs, methods for baseline setting and the demonstration of additionality of mitigation activities under the Article 6.4 mechanism, the extent to which the cooperation should go beyond offsetting and deliver an “overall mitigation in global emissions”, and other topics as well.23

From a markets perspective, the results of the conference were not all bad. Those directly involved in Article 6 negotiations praised the overall constructive spirit of the negotiations, including the parties making serious efforts to compromise and showing a willingness to shift some long-held positions to accommodate the concerns of other parties.24 The negotiations also resulted in an unequivocal mandate to continue negotiations based on what has been achieved in Madrid, to finalize Article 6 at COP26 in Glasgow. Progress captured in three presidency texts was referred to as starting point for further negotiations in the conclusions of the meeting.25

Bangladesh is one of the largest deltas in the world and the worst affected country in terms of population density. According to another study conducted by the World Bank, more than three-quarters or 134 million of around 165 million population of Bangladesh are at the risk of declining living standards due to rising temperature and erratic rainfall caused by climate change. The decline in living standards as a result of changes in average weather could cost a loss of 6.7 per cent or US$ 171 billion of Bangladesh’s GDP by 2050. UNICEF states that Bangladesh has 6 million climate migrants already despite excellent progress in adaptation and resilience. In addition to that, more than 40 million people will be homeless due to the sea-level rise by 2080. Around 19 million children of Bangladesh are already under threat, and the number is expected to be doubled by 2050. If the adverse impacts continued so abruptly, the country would not reduce poverty and achieve SDGs.

As one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change, Bangladesh has a vital role at the COP25. It was one of the first countries to submit its NDC and the Parliament of Bangladesh declared climate change a “planetary emergency”. The   

23 For a comprehensive description and analysis, See Also, Anju Sharma, Axel Michaelowa, Aglaja Espelage,

Jennifer Allan, and Benito Müller “COP25 key outcomes”, European Capacity Building Initiative (ECBI). 24 Sandra Greiner is representing the Gambia in the negotiations of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
25 Ralph Bodle and Sebastian Oberthur, “Legal form of the Paris Agreement and nature of its obligations”, in
Daniel Klein, María Pía Carazo, Meinhard Doelle, Jane Bulmer, and Andrew Higham, The Paris Agreement On
Climate Change. Analysis and Commentary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 75-78.

COP25 is an appropriate platform in which Bangladesh can be presented before the international stakeholders.

Bangladesh took a nice pavilion at the COP25 in Madrid, which the Prime Minister inaugurated. This allowed the government and Bangladeshi NGOs and researchers to run sessions that were quite well-attended. The initiative to have a pavilion enabling non-governmental actors to join it was a good and practical way of demonstrating the whole-of-society approach to tackling climate change in Bangladesh. The Bangladesh delegation also held a daily debrief every evening where other Bangladeshis were invited to attend and provide inputs to the official delegation.26

Organizing the pavilion for the first time is just the beginning of showcasing our country. Attended by foreign and Bangladeshi delegates, Bangladesh was able to project many different faces of it. Despite being a non-emitter and severely constrained in terms of resources and choices, Bangladesh is doing its best to enhance its resilience. Bangladesh has changed its image of one of the most vulnerable countries to a model of adaptation. This is now recognized globally. Ban Ki-Moon called Bangladesh a “teacher” in adaptation. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, an active leader in climate diplomacy, called Bangladesh the world’s “adaptation capital”. So, such a pavilion reinforced this narrative in COP meetings, which could rightly be regarded as a miniature of showcasing adaptation practices at the global platform. 

Bangladesh has already declared the NDCs under the Paris Agreement and made an example of respecting their commitments. It has prepared a plan to achieve 30 per cent of the total energy from renewable sources by 2041. As mentioned earlier, the Bangladesh Parliament has declared the climate vulnerability as an “emergency” and called to adopt necessary measures to reduce global warming. The followings are some of the policy initiatives taken by the government to align with the international commitments: 

• Bangladesh has prepared “Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100” with assistance from the Netherlands, a long-term strategy, policy and commitment to implement actions for sustainable delta based on nature-based solutions.  

26 Saleemul Huq, “COP25: Long but barely fruitful”, The Daily Star, 18 December 2019, available at https://

www.thedailystar.net/opinion/politics-climate-change/news/cop25-long-barely-fruitful-1841743, accessed on 17
June 2020.

• Bangladesh has accumulated Climate Change Trust Fund on its own as one of the first Least Developing Countries (LDCs). It has so far spent more than US$ 415 million from its resources for mitigation and adaptation purposes. Bangladesh is also set to spend as much as US$ 10 billion to make the country less vulnerable to natural disasters.

• The country prepared the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP), National Strategy on the Management of Disaster and Climate-change Induced Internal Displacement and National Adaptation Plan to deal with the issues. It is going to update the UNFCCC-driven NAP and BCCSAP up to 2030.27

• Bangladesh is also hosting 1.1 million Rohingya, which is causing environmental and social havoc in Cox’s Bazar, an environmentally critical area, for example, with the loss of forest, hills, biodiversity and local livelihood.28 

As a graduating country from the LDCs, Bangladesh has a high moral/ ethical ground in climate diplomacy. It is innocent victims of actions taken beyond its borders. The major emitters, particularly from developed countries, are engaged with moral corruption. While they impose a carbon tax or othe r market instruments in limiting emissions within their borders, they enjoy free-riding in exporting emissions into a borderless atmosphere. They continue to see national interests through the lens of centuries-old national-territory-based Westphalian sovereignty.29 Climate change violates the fundamental human and development rights of vulnerable counties like Bangladesh. Bangladesh needs a new lens of “pooled sovereignty” with enlightened interests to solve global commons issues like atmospheric instability. Bangladesh must lead the way as president of the Climate Vulnerable Forum to make the collective voice louder with its increasingly declining aid dependency.30  

27 Mehdi Al Amin, “Only 2% global climate change funds reach most vulnerable people”, The Dhaka Tribune,

available at https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/dhaka/2019/11/30/only-2-of-global-climate-changefunds-reach-most-vulnerable-people, accessed on 30 November 2019.
28 “PM urges int’l community to adopt appropriate climate action plan”, The Daily Star, 02 December 2019,
available at https://www.thedailystar.net/environment/climate-change/create-framework-address-needsclimate-migrants-1834723, accessed on 17 June 2020.
29 Muhammad Zamir, “COP25: Climate crisis has reached the point of no return”, The Financial Express, 17
December 2019, available at https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/views/cop25-climate-crisis-has-reached-thepoint-of-no-return-1576425103, accessed on 17 June 2020.
30 Saleemul Huq, “COP26: COP25 Mistakes must not be repeated in Glasgow”, The Daily Star, 12 February
2020, available at https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/politics-climate-change/news/cop25-mistakes-mustnot-be-repeated-glasgow-1866664, accessed on 17 June 2020.

The COP25 was the longest COP ever, which went overtime by two days and nights of continuous negotiations but did not produce a result. Such extensions of time are particularly unfair to the most vulnerable developing countries like Bangladesh, as most of their delegates had to leave Madrid and could not be there until the end to prevent their text from disappearing in the final version. As this has become a usual practice, Bangladesh should join with other vulnerable countries’ groups (for example, the climate-vulnerable forum) and demand that hard deadlines should maintain for future COPs and anything, i.e., undecided by then, should automatically take forward to the next COP. If the Presidency of the COP feels that overnight negotiations are essential, this should be done at night or the day before the deadline.

At the same time, Bangladesh should allow some senior negotiators to remain for an extra day beyond the official end, in case the negotiations go into overtime. By not being there till the end, the country might risk losing everything that it wants in the final decision. The final agreement paper always drops development in countries’ text unless they stay until the end to defend it. Bangladesh also needs to invest in building the capacity of younger negotiators who can take over in future negotiations. 

Another important aspect of the COPs, in general, is that they include many different events that are taking place simultaneously. More or less 30,000 people from all over the world converge at the COP venue over two weeks. Only around 5,000 of the actual government negotiators meet at the technical level for the first week and are then joined by ministers (and sometimes, heads of government) for the second week when the final political negotiations occur. The rest of the many thousands of people come from different backgrounds, including youth, indigenous people, NGOs, parliamentarians, the private sector, and many others, who attend many different events in the city hosting the COP during the two weeks. These events provide marvelous opportunities for networking with like-minded groups from all over the world. Some of these side events happen at the COP venue itself, which is usually divided into a blue zone for the negotiators and a green zone for others.

The President of the COP25 was active in promoting this COP as a Blue COP. Before and during the COP, several events highlighted the role of oceans in tackling climate change. The IPCC published a special report on oceans and cryosphere, highlighting the impacts of climate change and how the oceans can address the problem before the COP25. The next COP is likely to adopt “oceans and climate change” as a formal agenda. With the successful delimitation of Bangladesh’s maritime boundaries with neighbours, it is now developing a Blue Strategy, which is of utmost importance for such a small landmass. Thus, Bangladesh does have concerns to raise at COPs. Next, it should initiate some research in earnest on the blue economy to look for its potential and pitfalls from climate change. This should be presented at a side event in Bangladesh Pavilion for COP26.

Since 2014, the UNFCCC has been working on “Gender Action Programme”, and the COP25 initiated a roadmap for its implementation. Bangladesh already has adopted “Gender and Climate Action Plan”. In gender parameters, Bangladesh stands out among South Asian and many other developing countries, which is one key to solving the climate crisis. This deserves to be shared at COPs.31

The garments sector of Bangladesh, which drives the country’s export economy, is impacted by climate change. Based on solid research, the country can project the negative impacts on the sector and how the global community can support to achieve a low-carbon manufacturing process. Already, Bangladesh stands out as having the highest number of environment-friendly garment factories. This year at the COP25, the Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL)32 had an effective presence, and the country should encourage more private-sector participation to showcase their processes and products.

The previous sections deal with the issues discussed in the COP25 both at the national and international levels. Climate negotiations at this conference ended with wrapping up an event that saw more progress from private sectors than national, regional, and local governments. However, there was widespread disappointment that no overall consensus was reached regarding increased climate   

31 Shaila Shahid, “The only light from the disappointing: COP25 Gender Action Plan”, The Dhaka Tribune,

20 January 2020, available at https://www.dhakatribune.com/climate-change/2020/01/20/the-only-light-fromthe-disappointing-cop25-gender-action-plan, accessed on 15 June 2020.
32 The Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL) is a state-owned development financial institution
dedicated to promoting and financing infrastructure and renewable energy projects in the country. The
UNFCCC has issued 212,482 carbon credits to the IDCOL. It issued 395,286 carbon credits worth € 3.56
million to two Bangladeshi organizations- IDCOL and Grameen Shakti. Bangladesh is getting the fund under
the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for our solar home system programme. For more details see,
http://idcol.org/home/GCFProgram, accessed on 25 June 2020. 

ambition. With these contexts, the following section will discuss the expectations and realities of negotiation at the COP25. 

First, there is the fear that governments are inherently bad at cooperating.33 If governments follow the logic of “rational prudence,” which invokes the interpretation of their contributions and the resulting overall fairness strictly to advance their shortterm interests, it is difficult to see how countries should be “nudged” into action by the Paris Agreement.34 It is determined by “reciprocity” (what countries with shared identities are doing) and “demarcation” (what countries with competing interests and from other “blocks” are doing).35 Such dynamic is clearly at odds with the momentum needed to implement the Paris Agreement.

Second, transparency and information on failing ambition (still) fail to exercise pressure on governments. Current NDCs are difficult to analyze and compare as they differ in length, scope, and type of contribution.36 Efforts to harmonize formats and timeframes have failed in Madrid. It will take a while to achieve the objectives of the “enhanced transparency framework” defined in Article 13 of the Paris Agreement.37 However, the various review processes under the Agreement could help the parties and observers identify solutions and good practices already implemented by the parties to be replicated in other countries. They could also build trust among the parties that action is being taken. Trust would help create an atmosphere of cooperation and mutual support, leading to an increase in ambition. However, assessing the adequacy of action and policy requires comparable, intelligible, and complete information, which is unlikely to be generated by the transparency framework soon. In the absence of complete and comparable information, it is impossible to hold the parties   

33 Scott Barrett and Astrid Dannenberg, “An experimental investigation into ‘pledge and review’ in climate

negotiations”, Climatic Change, Vol. 138, No. 1-2, 2016, pp. 339-351; Scott Barrett, “Co-ordination vs.
voluntarism and enforcement in sustaining international environmental cooperation”, Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 113, No. 51, 2016, pp. 14515-14522. 34 Vegard Tørstad and Håkon Sælen, “Fairness in the climate negotiations: what explains varia tion in parties’
expressed conceptions?”, Climate Policy, Vol. 18, No. 5, 2018, pp. 642-654. 35 Charlotte Streck, “The mirage of Madrid: elusive ambition on the horizon”, Climate Policy, Vol. 20, No. 2,
2020, pp. 143-148.
36 W. P. Pauw, Richard J. T. Klein, Kennedy Mbeva, Adis Dzebo, Davide Cassanmagnago, and Anna Rudloff,
“Beyond headline mitigation numbers: we need more transparent and comparable NDCs to achieve the Paris
Agreement on climate change”, Climatic Change, Vol. 147, No. 1, 2018, pp. 23-29. 37 Romain Weikmans, Harro van Asselt, and J. Timmons Roberts, “Transparency requirements under the Paris
Agreement and their (un)likely impact on strengthening the ambition of nationally determined contributions
(NDCs)”, Climate Policy, Vol. 20, No. 4, 2019, pp. 1-16.  

accountable for their action on one hand and create the needed atmosphere of trust on the other.

Third, as discussed above, as long as developed countries fail to meet their financial pledges, it will be hard to unlock the full potential of cooperation among developing countries. A large number of commitments of developing countries are conditional on the provision of finance from developed countries. Till now, financial pledges do not form part of NDCs, and it is unclear whether and how the pledged US$ 100 billion will reach developing countries. Climate finance, technology transfer, and the capacity building may increase a country’s ambition to address climate change.38 However, countries may hold back additional pledges because of doubts about the availability of support.

Fourth, the problem may, in the end, be national rather than multilateral., The reason for lacking ambition in NDCs may be a corresponding lack of ambition within national political discourses and long-term strategic planning and an absence of concrete legislative proposals to enhance mitigation and adaptation action. Current legislative action is insufficient as current policies would still lead to a warming of about 3.6°C by the end of the century.39 Climate change still does not enjoy the policy priority. It does not meet the expectations of the millions of demonstrators that called for climate action in Madrid in the months before.40

Finally, there may be an inherent problem with COP formats that push governments to determine the need to take action relative to the measures taken by other states. The format of the COP rarely creates space to discuss constructive cooperation. The traditional modus operandi of the COP centers on technocratic negotiations and political bargaining.  

As Madrid shows, countries are reluctant to step forward with far-reaching pledges, often justifying inaction by referring to different responsibilities and capabilities.41 Interestingly, in comparative bargaining governments defeat public  

38 Pieter Pauw, Kennedy Mbeva and Harro van Asselt, “Subtle differentiation of countries’ responsibilities

under the Paris Agreement”, Palgrave Communications, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2019. 39 Niklas Höhne, Takeshi Kuramochi, Carsten Warnecke, Frauke Röser, Hanna Fekete, Markus Hagemann,
Thomas Day, Ritika Tewari, Marie Kurdziel, Sebastian Sterl, and Sofia Gonzales, “The Paris Agreement:
resolving the inconsistency between global goals and national contributions”, Climate Policy, Vol. 17, No. 1,
2017, pp. 16–32.
40 “Fridays4Future counts 13 million of striking students and school children by February 2020”, available at
https://fridaysforfuture.org/statistics/graph, accessed on 07 February 2020; “Thousands of protesters gathered
in Madrid during the cop to demand decisive climate action”, available at https://www.bbc.com/news/ worldeurope-50694361, accessed on 07 February 2020.
41 “Summary of the Chile/Madrid Climate Change Conference: 2-15 December 2019”, Earth Negotiations
Bulletin, Vol. 12, No. 775, 2019.  

opinion that by and large favours bold climate action by their government, unilaterally and irrespective of whether other nations act.42 In contrast to government delegations, people do not weigh the fairness of their contribution against the corresponding action by other states, unless governments explicitly make such comparisons to justify inaction. Support for climate action remains strong if the national economic forecasts are not favourable and costs of action are high.43

To explain why the parties failed to agree on rules to govern future carbon markets, it is crucial to look at the underlying philosophical differences, i.e., how the Parties envisage future carbon markets. The controversies that play out in Article 6 are largely a reflection of different visions around the functioning and role of markets and non-markets in the context of the Paris Agreement. Carbon markets do not fit easily into the Paris Agreement architecture. If they are to work, they need to be driven by demand for the mechanism-specific emission reduction units. The Article 6.4 mechanism and the cooperative approaches of Article 6.2 will only leverage private sector action if the rules are conducive to investors. Negotiators (many of them without experience or expertise in trading and investment) are challenged to create cooperative approaches that are not just abiding by political preferences but are technically sound and consider the functioning of the market. Compared to other Articles of the Paris Agreement and their operationalization in the Paris Rulebook, the emerging rules on Article 6 are the most technically sophisticated. Technical and political issues are closely intertwined and difficult to separate, that is why technical negotiators play a vital role in the Article 6 negotiations and continue to stay closely involved even in ministerial deliberations.

There are three main philosophical controversies around markets shaping the Article 6 negotiations:

First, it is not even clear whether Article 6 should create and regulate markets in the first place. The two sub-articles regarding creating market approaches in the Paris Agreement never use the term ‘carbon markets. It is indirectly established through the reference to non-market approaches in Article 6.8. While the vast majority of countries look favourably at carbon markets, some do not. However, even the countries that support the principled notion of markets supporting the implementation of the Paris Agreement differ in their views on how narrowly such markets should be framed.   

42 Liam F. Beiser-McGrath and Thomas Bernauer, “How robust is public support for unilateral climate policy?”

Environmental Science & Policy, Vol. 54, 2015, pp. 316-330. 43 Aya Kachi, Thomas Bernauer, and Robert Gampfer, “Climate policy in hard times: Are the pessimists, right?”
Ecological Economics, Vol. 114, 2015, pp. 227-241. 

Second, it is not clear what role the UN has in overseeing these new markets. A key controversy between the creation of bottom-up approaches and centralized mechanisms is defining the international community’s role in shaping carbon markets. Very different underlying presumptions exist. The EU and most Latin American, African and small island countries perceive strict international rules to guarantee a credible carbon market. By contrast, members of the Umbrella group (particularly the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand) consider national governments better equipped to design and oversee carbon markets. The less responsibility placed into the hands of UN institutions, the better. Therefore, members of the group ferociously fend off any proposals that would give the UN system an approval role over individual cooperative approaches or establish a governing body under Article 6.2 similar to the supervisory body that will oversee the Article 6.4 mechanism.

Other countries, e.g., India and China, are adamant about the leading role of NDCs. Carbon markets are but a tool to achieve NDC pledges and must be placed in that hierarchical order. This means that no requirements on NDCs should be introduced through the backdoor of Article 6, and any meddling of the UN in domestic affairs under the pretext of environmental integrity, sustainable development, or human rights must be strictly avoided.

The Article 6 negotiations are a microcosm of the larger diplomatic spades in international climate policy in these controversies. They are, however, also bringing in the new dimension of non-state actors into the mix. To fully operationalize the approaches under Article 6, governments will have to engage with the private sector and civil society both at the UNFCC level and at home.  

The COP26 has been postponed by one full year to November 2021. It means that the entire schedule is delayed by one year, almost as if 2020 never happened. Most of the work that would be done during this year has been postponed. That includes meetings of committees that operate under the UNFCCC, and the inter-sessional meeting of the subsidiary bodies, which has provisionally been postponed from June to October this year but may well be delayed further. How to organize the trajectory between now and November 2021 becomes a puzzle. Part of the puzzle is deciding on the timing and form of the various meetings, but a more difficult part is to consider what happens to the mandates that were agreed at the climate change conferences in Madrid in 2019 in Katowice in 2018, and at other earlier COP sessions.

At least two issues are central to the international climate policy architecture for which this disconnect makes a difference. One issue concerns the transition from  

CDM to the market mechanisms of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, regulating how countries can reduce their emissions using international carbon markets. The CDM sits under the Kyoto Protocol, which still exists. Its second commitment runs from 2013 to 2020, as agreed in the 2012 Doha Amendment to the Protocol. This Amendment, however, has not yet entered into force. It requires 144 countries to ratify it, and to date, only 138 countries have done so. In the absence of the Doha Amendment and agreement on a possible third commitment period, certified emission reductions (i.e., carbon credits) issued under the CDM risk losing their value.43 Moreover, lack of agreement on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement means these carbon credits cannot be transferred and retained their value under the new market mechanisms.

The second issue is about the NDCs. Here, the disconnect gives countries more time to prepare updated NDCs, and the UN Climate Change Secretariat prepares the synthesis report. The delay is probably a welcome one, given that many countries now need to prioritize the COVID-19 pandemic. It also provides countries with an opportunity to consider their climate action in the economic recovery from COVID-19. On the other hand, it is an open question now how ambitious this year’s updated NDCs will turn out to be. In March 2020, Japan submitted an NDC that left its 2015 emission target unchanged, even though the Paris Agreement suggests that countries ramp up their ambition in successive NDCs. The combination of COVID-19 and the postponing of COP26 may lead to less and later climate action. 

Trust and confidence among countries were significantly damaged in Madrid. As long as countries continue to fall short in putting forward ambitious climate plans, global climate conferences should reconsider their focus and shift attention from pledges to action. After all, only action can achieve technological and political breakthroughs, allowing countries to ratchet up their ambition, setting in motion the virtuous feedbacks that the drafters of the Paris Agreement envisaged. The following are some policy suggestions from scholars around the world:

● Issue-specific cooperation agreements could bring together governments, subnational public actors (cities, states), major industries, and NGOs in the institutional context of the Paris Agreement. Such partnerships should be more formalized than the NSA Zone for Climate Action (NAZCA) initiatives and follow a clear implementation pathway. The transparency framework would apply, and the success of such cooperation agreements would be evaluated and fed into the Global Stock-take. 

● Several authors have proposed ‘climate clubs’ to accelerate action among ambitious and engaged countries or ‘coordination treaties’ to take measures around green technologies. These proposals have tended to focus on international cooperation among governments outside of the UNFCCC. The proposed thematic sessions would take place in the context of the Paris Agreement under the UNFCCC and could include governments and non-state actors.

● As countries still struggle to define the fundamental operating principles of Article 6, private actors are embracing voluntary carbon markets. The past year has seen a boom in voluntary carbon credit demand. In the first eleven months of 2019 alone, more than 93 million carbon credits were issued under the leading Verified Carbon Standard rules, significantly growing in previous years. Harnessing that “mitigation market force” in the context of public-private partnerships under the Paris Agreement may help to define climate compacts around particular mitigation problems and create real examples for cooperative approaches. There may already be a group of governments ready to accept the challenge.

● Several committed countries launched the San José Principles for High Ambition and Integrity in International Carbon Markets. A combination of voluntary carbon market rules and the San José Principles could well help start cooperation among countries and private partners around particular climate challenges. 

● Bangladesh needs analytical exercises well before each meeting to generate novel ideas for consensus-building.44 For the purpose, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Finance, Economic Relations Division, Planning Commission, along with NGOs and the private sector, must work together to put more efforts in building the capacity of negotiators for most widely publicized global diplomatic forum.

The Madrid COP may not have been a high point of global climate diplomacy, but it may be a bit too early to surrender to complete despair. Instead of looking back towards the frustrated expectations of Madrid, all actors, governments, corporations, and NGOs should join in their ambition to make COP26 to be held in November 2021 in Glasgow a success. The world needs to remember that the COVID-19 crisis will end, but global warming will continue. Therefore, it is high time to reduce emissions significantly and boost investments in clean energy technologies aligned with the climate-neutral objective 

Table 2: Climate Change Negotiations Timeline 

1979 The first World Climate Conference takes place.
1988 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is set up.
1990 The IPCC and the second World Climate Conference call for a global treaty on
climate change. The United Nations General Assembly negotiations on a framework convention begin.
1991 First meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee takes place.
1992 At the Earth Summit in Rio, the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) is opened for signature along with its sister Rio
Conventions, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.
1994 The UNFCCC enters into force.
1995 The first Conference of the Parties (COP 1) takes place in Berlin.
1996 The UNFCCC Secretariat is set up to support action under the Convention.
1997 The Kyoto Protocol is formally adopted in December at COP3. The Protocol
legally binds developed countries to emission reduction targets.
2001 The Marrakesh Accords are adopted at COP7, detailing the rules for implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, setting up new funding and planning instruments
for adaptation, and establishing a technology transfer framework.
2005 Entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol. The first Meeting of the Parties to the
Kyoto Protocol (MOP 1) takes place in Montreal. In accordance with Kyoto
Protocol requirements, Parties launched negotiations on the next phase of the
KP under the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I
Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP). What was to become the Nairobi
Work Programme on Adaptation (it would receive its name in 2006, one year
later) is accepted and agreed on.
2007 The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report is released. Climate science entered into
popular consciousness. At COP13, Parties agreed on the Bali Road Map, which
charted the way towards a post-2012 outcome in two work streams: the AWGKP, and another under the Convention, known as the Ad-Hoc Working Group on
Long-Term Cooperative Action Under the Convention.
2009 Copenhagen Accord drafted at COP15 in Copenhagen. Countries later submitted emissions reductions pledges or mitigation action pledges, all non-binding.
2010 Cancun Agreements drafted and largely accepted by the COP, at COP16.
Through the Agreements, countries made their emission reduction pledges official, in what was the largest collective effort the world has ever seen to reduce
emissions in a mutually accountable way.
2011 The Durban Platform for Enhanced Action drafted and accepted by the COP,
at COP17. In Durban, governments clearly recognized the need to draw up the
blueprint for a fresh universal, legal agreement to deal with climate chayond 2020, where all will play their part to the best of their ability and all will
be able to reap the benefits of success together.
2012 The Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol is adopted by the CMP at CMP8.
The amendment includes: new commitments for Annex I Parties to the Kyoto
Protocol who agreed to take on commitments in a second commitment period
from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2020; a revised list of greenhouse gases to
be reported on by Parties in the second commitment period; and amendments to
several articles of the Kyoto Protocol pertaining to the first commitment period
and which needed to be updated for the second commitment period.
2013 Key decisions adopted at COP19/CMP9 include decisions on further advancing the Durban Platform, the Green Climate Fund and Long-Term Finance, the
Warsaw Framework for REDD Plus and the Warsaw International Mechanism
for Loss and Damage.
2014 COP20 is held in December in Lima, Peru.
2015 COP21 or CMP11 will be held in Paris, France in December.
2016 The twenty-second session dealt mainly with water management and decarbonizing energy supplies.
2017 COP23 focused primarily on technical details of the Paris Agreement, it was the
first conference of the parties to take place after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the agreement. COP23 concluded
with what was called the Fiji Momentum for Implementation, which outlined
the steps that need to be taken in 2018 to make the Paris Agreement operational
and launched the Talanoa Dialogue - a process designed to help countries enhance and implement their Nationally Determined Contributions by 2020
2018 The conference agreed on rules to implement the Paris Agreement, which will
come into force in 2020, that is to say the rulebook on how governments will

measure, and report on their emissions-cutting efforts.nge beyond 2020, where all will play their part to the best of their ability and all will
be able to reap the benefits of success together.
2012 The Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol is adopted by the CMP at CMP8.
The amendment includes: new commitments for Annex I Parties to the Kyoto
Protocol who agreed to take on commitments in a second commitment period
from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2020; a revised list of greenhouse gases to
be reported on by Parties in the second commitment period; and amendments to
several articles of the Kyoto Protocol pertaining to the first commitment period
and which needed to be updated for the second commitment period.
2013 Key decisions adopted at COP19/CMP9 include decisions on further advancing the Durban Platform, the Green Climate Fund and Long-Term Finance, the
Warsaw Framework for REDD Plus and the Warsaw International Mechanism
for Loss and Damage.
2014 COP20 is held in December in Lima, Peru.
2015 COP21 or CMP11 will be held in Paris, France in December.
2016 The twenty-second session dealt mainly with water management and decarbonizing energy supplies.
2017 COP23 focused primarily on technical details of the Paris Agreement, it was the
first conference of the parties to take place after President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the agreement. COP23 concluded
with what was called the Fiji Momentum for Implementation, which outlined
the steps that need to be taken in 2018 to make the Paris Agreement operational
and launched the Talanoa Dialogue - a process designed to help countries enhance and implement their Nationally Determined Contributions by 2020
2018 The conference agreed on rules to implement the Paris Agreement, which will
come into force in 2020, that is to say the rulebook on how governments will
measure, and report on their emissions-cutting efforts. 

Note: Members of the group of Leas Develped Countries (LDC) are shown in Italics. There are 197 Parties to the Convention. The Holy See is the only observer state Source: Lorenz Moosmann, Cristina Urrutia and Anne Siemons, “International Climate Negotiations – Issues as Stake in View of the COP25 UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid” Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, European Parliament, Luxemberg, 2019