Areas of Work

International Climate Negotiations and Climate Science

QUNO works to foster enhanced trust and understanding in international negotiations to promote ambitious and fair global action to address climate change and related planetary crises.

QUNO has been involved with the international climate change negotiations at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) since 2012. In the highly political space of the UNFCCC, we offer off-the-record quiet diplomacy discussions for climate negotiators. These discussions aim to build communication, understanding and trust between a diverse group of countries on issues sensitive to the negotiations at that time. Our presence in this space is continuously evolving in response to the needs of the negotiations. Once focused on supporting the creation of the Paris Agreement, we now hold space for discussions on effective and fair implementation of that Agreement. See our analysis of the latest COP28 here

QUNO is actively engaged in monitoring the work of the Subsidiary Bodies within the UNFCCC where, as members of the Research and Non-governmental Organisations constituency (RINGO), we observe the UNFCCC Committees, including the Katowice Committee of Experts (Response Measures), Loss and Damage, and the Facilitative Working Group of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform.  Here, we focus on the human and nature impact of decisions made and advocate for rights-based, urgent and ambitious climate action and finance to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C above industrial levels.

We are also the only independent faith-based accredited observer at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and are expert reviewers of the IPCC reports.  Our work there is twofold. We support climate research for urgent, equitable and transformative climate policy, which promotes sustainable and just economic, energy, agricultural systems, and behaviour change to transform root causes of climate change driven by human activity. For examples of our interventions in IPCC approval sessions, please click the following links:  AR6 Physical ScienceAR6 Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, AR6 Mitigation and AR6 Synthesis Report. Secondly, we develop publications which communicate these critical IPCC climate findings to a range of audiences, including diplomats, UN colleagues, climate activists and the general public. For an example of this work, please see the article ‘The Latest IPCC Synthesis Report: What We Learned About Climate Science, and What We Learned About Ourselves’ by Lindsey Fielder Cook.

A 4-minute video explaining our IPCC work (link)

Recent Timeline Events

January 2024

Governments need to urgently and equitably transform root causes driving rising temperature

QUNO’s Human Impacts of Climate Change programme, speaking on behalf of the Friends World Committee for Consultation, this month participated in the 60th Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in Istanbul, Turkey. 

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December 2023

Intergenerational justice with this text is still at stake

The most difficult climate change Conference of Parties (COP) since the Paris Agreement (2015) has just finished. The mood in Dubai is sober and exhausted; there is little elation.  QUNO’s analysis will follow in the next days, but for now we can say that true urgency, equity and wealthy country leadership commitment remain deeply insufficient. Still, certain taboos on fossil fuels and international finance dysfunction are shifting, alongside improved focus on Adaptation and Loss and Damage.

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November 2023

QUNO publication communicates climate science

The Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva has just published an updated version ‘A Government Official’s Toolkit: Inspiring Urgent, Real, and Equitable Climate Action,’ which is available in English, Arabic, and Spanish. This publication is aimed at enhancing understanding and communication of climate change.

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