03 February 2015 at Sunway Hotel, a workshop to disseminate key outcomes of the 20th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC CoP 20) was organized by the Climate Change Department of the Ministry of Environment in cooperation with the Cambodia Climate Change Alliance (CCCA), under presidency of H.E. Say Samal, the Minister of Environment. The event was attended by over 140 key stakeholders from National Climate Change Committee, Climate Change Technical Team, development partners, embassies, academia, civil societies and media.
H.E. Say Samal, the Minister of Environment, stressed as a UNFCCC’s party that “Cambodia wish to see a new agreement on climate change in CoP 21 to be held in Paris at end 2015 and industrial counties should take lead on GHG reduction, including provision of capacity building, financing and transferring technology to least developed countries”. He finally indicated post-CoP 20 activities including Cambodia’ s plan to sign the Doha amendment on 2nd Kyoto protocol and to develop a report on Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) to be submitted to UNFCCC secretariat before CoP 21.
H.E. Ty Sokun, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and a member of the National Climate Change Committee, noted some causes of climate change and various efforts of the Royal Government of Cambodia at national and regional level. He also hoped that a new climate agreement would made soon to increase financing to vulnerable countries such as Cambodia.
H.E. Jean-Claude Poimboeuf, Ambassador of France in Cambodia, delivered a key note on France contribution to GHG reduction that “French parliament has adopted a bill on energy policy and transition towards a low carbon society which requires that by 2030, carbon emissions in France will be cut by 40% and the share of renewable energies be raised to 32% of our energy mix. He finally addressed the key expectations for the CoP 21 are to be a good host brought over 20,000 delegates and to reach binding agreements on climate change from among UNFCCC’s parties.
Some key outcomes of CoP 20 were highlighted by members of the Cambodian delegation who attended the conference. The decisions include:
- Approved Lima Call for Climate Action regulated for negotiation toward 2015;
- Developed Lima Work Progamme on Gender, promoting equal participation in climate change response;
- Approved composition of Executive Committee of the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage;
- Issued ministerial statement on the education and promoting climate change into curriculum and national development plan;
- Required all parties develop a INDC report and submit to UNFCCC’s secretariat by end of March 2015;
- Some developed countries and developing countries provided budget of 10.2 billon US$ to Green Climate Fund for mitigation and adaptation actions;Pursuing urge the developed countries’ commitment to provide 100 billion US$ by 2020 globally for climate change response in developing countries;
- Urge the developing countries, particularly abundant of forest countries develop national strategy for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) and establish Information System Safeguard;
NGO’s perspectives on CoP 20 outcomes was also shared by Mr. Tek Vannara, NGO Forum Executive Director, on behalf of over 30 NGOs that though various outcomes are made, Lima decisions were ambitious and need to be reinforced. Even some progress was made in Lima, getting mutual agreement is still a struggle “No strong and clear ambition on the 100 billion US$ commitment and there still no clarity, more than 5 years, about the pathways towards 2020”.
During the High-level Ministerial Segment of CoP 20, H.E. Sabo Ojano, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Environment and chief of the Cambodian delegation, made a statement on Cambodia’s key positions. CoP 20 was organized in Lima, Peru from 01 to 12 December 2014 and brought together over 11,000 delegates from UNFCCC signatories. CoP21 will be held in Paris, France from 30 November to 11 December 2015.
