After two days in Lima at COP 20, what is the status of the negotiations?

Most groups have started work. The Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI) has the biggest agenda with 19 items. Important for business is the review of the CDM although progress looks unlikely. Another topic is how stakeholders engage with governments in the international climate change process. Discussion on this topic has not yet really started but we hope for a positive outcome in the 2015 Paris agreement.

There have been two meetings so far on the Framework for Various Approaches (FVA) and New Market Mechanisms (NMM). Both of these are vital parts of enabling markets to be available in the 2015 agreement to allow companies to comply with their commitments at the lowest possible costs.

The Ad-hoc Group on the Durban platform met for the first time on Tuesday. Following the usual (and predictable) opening statements, governments actually started discussing the wording that they believe should be in the 2015 agreement. This is needed given that the text of the new agreement has to be available six months before the Paris meeting in December 2015. As well as making progress in what should be in the Paris agreement, this week and next substantial progress is also expected on agreeing what should be contained in each goverment's nationally determined contribution (INDC) due for submission by end-March 2015.