In December 2018, world leaders assembled in Katowice for the 24th Conference of the Parties (COP24) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to come up with operational guidance for the implementation of the Paris Agreement (PA), the so-called rulebook. This is the detailed manual needed for the PA to enter force in 2020.

The parties have agreed on a common regulatory framework rulebook to implement and report on their emissions-cutting commitments under the PA. Egypt has played a key role in the success of the negotiations at COP24 by leading the Group of 77 and China, and chairing the group of African negotiators. Under the COP presidency consultations, Egypt and Germany co-facilitated matters related to climate finance. To support developing countries, Germany offered €70million to the Adaptation Fund. It also became the first country to commit the concrete amount of €1.5billion to the Green Climate Fund (GCF).

The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stresses the need to maintain the commitment to the PA’s aims of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, which is possible but requires unprecedented actions. Therefore, all parties must begin work on updating and enhancing their current National Determined Contributions (NDC’s) for enhanced actions on climate and finance.

COP24 chartered a new phase – a deal on implementation of the PA, but there are still some issues left unresolved, for example, how countries can trade emission rights with each other. The next step is to negotiate these final elements at COP25 in Chile, where Parties should present their current NDCs indicating emissions-cutting targets and set new future targets for 2030.

The 59th Cairo Climate Talks brought together climate negotiators, climate science experts, and policy makers to share their valuable insights on the major outcomes of COP24 and to discuss how the rulebook will support the implementation of the PA; what the key elements of the adopted text are in terms mitigation, adaptation, finance and transparency elements; and what opportunities Egypt can seize in this regard?