From Paris to Katowice: Moving from Agenda Setting to Recommendations

Abstract

This chapter presents a continuation of the overview and analysis of the second chapter. The story is picked up at the close of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris negotiations, which, in the form of the decision of 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21), created a specific entity to work on the issue of migration and climate change and thus marked the beginning of a new era of policy making in this area. This analysis covers the time period from 2015 until the end of 2018, when this entity—the Task Force on Displacement—presented its recommendations. As is to be expected from a highly technical UNFCCC entity, the recommendations of the Task Force are highly technical, and include proposals for extending the Task Force; providing information on intended financial support; creating synergies with other areas of the work plan; and upporting developing countries in integrating displacement concerns into their National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the UNFCCC. Despite events from the UNFCCC both setting the scene for and closing the chapter, a marked difference from the first fifteen episodes detailed in the second chapter is that the UNFCCC is much less the focus of policy making, with other policy fora also becoming important and actors that are new to the area creating new spaces for discussion.