Between November 30 and December 11, 2015, international negotiators will meet at the Conference of Parties (COP) 21 in Paris. The annual COP is the main decision making session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This meeting is historic: in the context of increasingly strong and urgent calls to tackle anthropogenic climate change, the participants will seek to agree on a new agreement applicable to all Parties.

QUNO maintains a presence at the UNFCCC and supports the negotiations through a number of avenues - particularly through our "quiet diplomacy" work. These four papers are intended to provide a comprehensive briefing for those concerned about the outcomes of COP21. The subjects are covered as follows:

• Paper 1: The UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP21) in Paris 2015.
• Paper 2: The importance of grassroots action to influence international climate negotiations.
• Paper 3: Questions to ask policy makers.
• Paper 4: What can we say, briefly, about the findings from climate science?

In this issue:

• What is an NDC? Elements for a New Climate Agreement 
• Drones: Transparency and Protection 
• I Belong: Eradicating Statelessness 
• Biological Diversity, Food Security and Small-scale Farmers’ Innovation 
• Highlights from QUNO New York
• News in Brief

“A Call to Conscience: Quaker experiences facing the challenge of Climate Change” features interviews with Quakers worldwide on why they care about climate change, and what they are doing to address the challenge locally, nationally and internationally.

QUNO Geneva has created this publication as a form of witness in facing anthropogenic climate change through love and action, rather than fear. The people portrayed span our worldwide Quaker community, from Africa to Europe, Asia Pacific to the Americas. 

Water and land are two of the key natural resources that shape billions of peoples’ livelihoods, food security, wellbeing and identity. Developing management of water, land and food that is equitable and peaceful is an increasingly challenging task due to a multitude of factors – such as resource degradation, population growth and violent conflict – that can fuel tensions and exacerbate vulnerabilities around natural resources. Increasing climate uncertainties now lend an additional urgency to the need to develop appropriate policy and practice at international, national and local levels.

As the UNFCCC moves towards new arrangements under the Durban Platform, facilitating trust among its Parties will be vital to enabling and encouraging States to stabilise their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and prevent dangerous levels of climate change. An effective and positive monitoring system can be an important part of building mutual trust between Parties to an international Convention, increasing confidence that all Members will fulfill their obligations by providing support for implementation while also identifying areas of non-compliance. This paper is a contribution by the Quaker United Nations Office to a discussion on what effective monitoring under the UNFCCC and its Protocols might look like, offering a small sample of approaches adopted by other international bodies and discussing some of the merits of each.