[Title] The Ninth Informal Meeting on Further Actions against Climate Change: Co-Chairs’ Summary

The Ninth Informal Meeting on Further Actions against Climate Change met in Tokyo, Japan, 3rd and 4th March 2011. Government officials from 26 Parties of the UNFCCC, UN organizations and the World Bank, as well as Chairs of the Ad Hoc Working Groups under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol (AWGs) attended the Meeting. The Meeting was co-chaired by Mr. Kenji Hiramatsu, Director General for Global Issues of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, and Mr. Luiz Alberto Figueiredo Machado, Director General of the Department of Environment and Special Affairs of Ministry of External Relations of Brazil.

Participants exchanged open and frank views on the negotiation on climate change. They shared the view that climate change is one of the most urgent challenges to be tackled by the international community and that it is important to accelerate negotiations in a constructive and collaborative manner.

The meeting served as a good opportunity to kick off this year’s discussion and to exchange views on major issues that should be handled during this year.

Participants concurred to maximize their efforts to maintain the momentum of climate change negotiations toward COP17, which will be held in Durban, South Africa, at the end of this year.

Participants welcomed the adoption of the Cancun Agreements at COP16, with important results in areas such as mitigation, finance, adaptation and technology. Participants shared the view that transparency and inclusiveness of the process towards and during COP16 contributed to such concrete outcomes.

At the Meeting, participants, after unanimously praising Mexico’s role in COP16, listed up the remaining issues of Cancun and discussed the priority among those issues, in order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness, and to ensure transparency and inclusiveness of this year’s negotiations. They also exchanged views on expected outcome of COP17.

Participants discussed major issues in the climate change negotiations, such as mitigation, MRV/ICA/IAER, adaptation, technology, finance, REDD-plus and market mechanisms. They also exchanged views on cooperation between developing and developed countries, as well as coordination between bilateral / regional cooperation and the UN framework.

With regard to mitigation, participants discussed a wide range of issues, including long/mid term global goal, inscription of pledges, and the way to facilitate the implementation of the pledges and to enhance the level of ambition on mitigation.

Concerning MRV/ICA/IAER, participants discussed how to identify possible elements of the guidelines for MRV of developed/developing countries, what kind of mechanism should be established for the ICA, how to implement capacity-building for MRV requirement and how the mechanism of the registry can be established.

As for adaptation, finance, technology and REDD+, the discussion was focused on how to operationalize the Cancun Agreements. Participants exchanged their views on the Cancun Adaptation Framework including Adaptation Committee, the Green Climate Fund, the Technology Mechanism including Technology Executive Committee (TEC) and Climate Technology Centre and Network (CTCN), and REDD+ mechanism. Participants also discussed the issue of market mechanism, including the way to ensure continuation of the market mechanisms. Regarding cooperation for developing countries, many participants emphasized the need to improve the cooperation between developed and developing counties.

Participants noted that this Informal Meeting has provided a valuable opportunity to exchange views between relevant countries and institutions, which contribute to enhance the international negotiations on climate change towards COP17.