COP 20 in Lima must be more than a dress rehearsal - Stop Climate Change
After quite some celebration, media hype and self-gratulations over the US and China deal, time for a cold shower: the prospects of a Paris 2015 agreement that delivers a path to a below 2°C warming are anything but certain. This negotiation round, Conference of Parties in Lima, Peru, that started last Monday will need to deliver key decisions to know wether the pledges, such as those made by US and China, will match what climate science says is necessary.
The COP needs to set the scope and content of the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, [the INDCS, Warsaw innovation for the non-grata word "target"] in order for those commitments to be quantifiable in terms of emissions, and so that they can eventually be verified, monitored and reported to ensure compliance.
The transparency and quantification of the intended contributions is also the basis for an international assessment of their fairness, as well as their aggregation to check the collective adequacy of the pledges. Needless to say, the Lima meeting should set up a process under the UNFCCC negotiations for such assessment and aggregation, well in time before the Paris meeting in order to spur increases in ambition where necessary.
