Finding decisions made by the UNFCCC is an important part of keeping yourself, your action group, family, friends, neighbours, workplace, community group and other local associations informed about the climate change negotiation process and climate governance. Knowledge is power but one of the keys is knowing where to find it. Here you'll find how to get hold of the information you might be seeking. Interpreting what a decision means will be the subject of another article!
Once you've located a decision, you can read it in English, Chinese, French, Russian, Arabic or Spanish. Usually the information is provided in PDF format.
Understanding how decisions are numbered
The decisions are numbered as follows:
- 19/CP.20. Means: Decision number 19 from COP 20.
Finding decisions
To find decisions made by the COP and/or the CMP, visit this website: https://unfccc.int/documentation/decisions/items/3597.php
To use it, make use of the various options it provides to narrow down what you might be looking for. It provides the following check-boxes:
- All Decisions
- COP Decisions
- COP/CMP Decisions
For example, if you know the actual numbering provided for a decision, you can place that into the All Decisions box. See above for how the numbering is used to identify particular decisions.
Or, if you don't know what decision it was, but you're certain there was a decision on a particular topic, write in the decision's title or a part of its title. For example: Keying in the word "Education" will return Decision 19/CP.20, The Lima Ministerial Declaration on Education and Awareness-raising.
Or, use the meeting type. Namely, type in which COP it was, in upper case. Thus, if you wanted a decision from COP 5, you'd type in COP 5, and all decisions from that COP would be returned.
Document lists
Documents that include but extend well beyond decisions can be found via the portal page that provides document lists. It can be accessed here: https://unfccc.int/documentation/document_lists/items/2960.php.
This page covers (and each link is highlighted on the portal page):
- Frequently requested items, including the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol, Rules of procedures and Introductory Guide to Documents.
- National reports, including technical assessment reports, in-depth reviews, national communications, National Adaptation Programmes of Action (NAPAs), national inventory submissions, status reports, individual reviews of GHG inventories, synthesis and assessment reports of GHG inventories submitted, and demonstrable progress reports.
Here you can also search by document type. The document types covered are:
- COP decisions
- COP reports
- CMP decisions
- COP/MOP reports
- CMP reports
- SBSTA reports
- SBI reports
- AWG-KP reports
- AWG-LCA reports
- ADP reports
- Technical papers
- Web-only documents
- IGO submissions
- NGO submissions.
Archived documents can also be retrieved from the portal page.
Finding the UNFCCC
That's easy, just click on this link: https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/convkp/conveng.pdf. Or, use the portal page described in the prior section.
(If it is updated, and this link fails to work, search the UNFCCC website and please consider updating the link so that other users may find it.)
Contacting the UNFCCC
If you have problems accessing documents or want further information, contact the UNFCCC Secretariat from this page: https://unfccc.int/secretariat/contact/items/2782.php. Read their suggestions before contacting.