Ecologic Legal is supporting the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the international climate negotiations, particularly on the identification and analysis of German, EU and international negotiation positions. This project builds on previous work conducted in the project "Legal and Institutional Aspects of the Future Climate Regime".
Ecologic Institute provides advice on matters of public international law in particular. The Institute's experts assist in the international and European discussions through specialist advice and develop solutions to legal questions in the international climate negotiations. The project supports the preparations for, and assists the incoming German EU Council Presidency in the second half of 2020. It includes inter alia:
- Scientific support in the preparation for the climate negotiation meetings, providing background papers on relevant negotiation topics, analyses of positions and submissions of third Parties, as well as the development of German and EU positions;
- Preparation for and the participation in EU positionings and EU expert groups (especially the Expert Group for Legal Questions, EG LEX);
- Preparation for and participation in the official meetings on the Paris Agreement, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.
The Paris Agreement of 2015 is the new cornerstone for international climate action. Parties to the Agreement have to submit nationally determined contributions and report on their implementation. The obligation to update these contributions every five years and improve on their ambition represents a new approach to ramp up national climate targets globally.
The Paris Rulebook of December 2018 contains key decisions that allow starting the technical work under the Agreement. However, parties did not find agreement on all aspects of the Rulebook. Also, the implementation of the agreed rules is going to require ongoing legal support.