COP 19 – Day 9 of the Conference

Introduction

Tuesday saw the opening ceremony of the high-level segment at COP 19 and CMP 9. As is customary, the curtain raiser began with numerous statements from a variety of heads of state and government ministers.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon set out a number of key objectives for the parties in Warsaw which were substantially echoed by UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres. These include promoting the ratification of the second commitment period under the Kyoto Protocol, increasing ambition levels across mitigation, adaptation and finance, and paving a route forward for an agreement in 2015. Many will regard this as an unsurprising list, and questions may be asked as to how much was achieved today between the speeches and posturing.