Lots of negotiations underway at all hours. Parties were eager to get the new text on a climate agreement on Friday (from ADP), some 38 pages of much square-bracketed text (ie not agreed), so there is much work still to do. Part of it supports technology development and transfer and with the creation of a ‘technology framework’ to guide the Technology Mechanism. On Saturday this text was then prepared and presented by the ADP Co-chairs to be offered to the hjosirer-level COP for the second week.

Around the negotiations, there have been two hjosir-level events focussing on the risks to carbon assets and to the financial sector from climate change and emissions agreements. At one, Al Gore concluded “the will to act is itself a renewable resource”. At the other, Mark Carney (Governor of the Bank of England) called for more transparent information in financial markets on climate risk [to companies] and announced the launch of a new task force on climate disclosure.

IEA gave a series a talks on their analysis and assessment of the challenges and solutions from the energy sector, with Fatih Birol and Kamel Ben Naceur welcoming the growth in renewable power station build last year, and inviting developing countries to join IEA.

On Wednesday, CO2GeoNet and Club CO2 organised an event in the public area on CCS, titled “CO2 Capture and Storage: a proven and safe technology vital for completing the climate change mitigation portfolio”. This was presented in French, and was well attended by an audience covering the whole spectrum of knowledge on CCS, with good enquiring questions.

The Global CCS Institute’s first event was held on Friday, focussing on how the UNFCCC can support CCS. Ulrika Raab reported on the UNFCCC Technical Expert Meeting on CCS in 2014, and the benefit for negotiators to see the results from real projects, such a Boundary Dam.

In the meantime, the CCS booth is being a good success. Being shared by University of Texas, CO2GeoNet, IEAGHG, CCSA, and also making available CCS information from UKCCSRC and the US Department of Energy, it has been steadily busy with particular interest from many developing country delegates.

Coverage of our UNFCCC Side-event on the 1st December has been shown by NHK (a Japanese television company in English language) and can be seen for a month at
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/features/201512021206.html .

Overall for CCS at this COP, people are noting that questions and interest have evolved from whether we need CCS and more on the ‘how do we do CCS’?