Messieurs Chairs,

The State of Palestine has the honour of speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, composed of 134 developing countries, constituting more than two-thirds of the Parties to the UNFCCC, and representing 4 of every 5 people in the world.

Our Group has engaged constructively with you, your Co-Facilitators, and with our partners in order to have conclusions at this session of the SBs. Our call has been, and continues to be, to strengthen the parts of our system under the UNFCCC in order to ensure that we are able to deliver on ambition on mitigation, adaptation, and the provision of the means of implementation. We need to make this system work so that it can effectively address the needs of our peoples all over the world, especially in developing countries that are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.

Let me make some points in relation to some of our agenda items:

1. On pre-2020, at this crucial historical juncture, the Group attaches great importance to pre-2020 ambition and implementation. Pre-2020 progress lays the foundation for post-2020 climate actions, highlighting Parties’ willingness with respect to their climate actions and the state of their ambition. Although efforts have been made by developed country parties, there are still significant gaps with respect to their actions on mitigation, adaptation and means of implementation, as well as reporting, etc. The Group welcomes the pre-2020 stocktake at COP25, in the meantime highlights the insufficiency of the panelist discussions. Therefore, to clearly identify pre-2020 progress and gaps, to find a way to address the gaps, and to ensure no gaps shifted to post-2020 to impose extra burden on developing countries are of critical significance to this Group.

2. On the finance related agenda items on the SBIs, namely the matters relating to membership in the Adaptation Fund Board and the provision of financial and technical resources, it is unfortunate that we have had conclusions to continue its consideration of this matter at SBI 52. Specifically on the membership of the Adaptation Fund Board, we had taken a decision in Katowice to allow Parties that are not Parties to the Kyoto Protocol to be eligible to serve in the Board. As the Adaptation Fund at this point in time serves both the KP and PA and under the authority of the CMP, we do not see the need for amending the Board membership structure. With regards to the provision of financial and technical support under Agenda item 4.c, we still encounter the problem that a few developing countries who are eligible for funding from the GEF to fulfil their convention commitments have been prevented from accessing these resources without any formal communication from the GEF.

3. The Group underscores that fully realized technology development and transfer is of vital importance to improve developing countries’ abilities to adapt to and mitigate climate change. The Technology Mechanism must be strengthened for this purpose. We are deeply concerned with the challenges faced by the CTCN in securing stable and sustainable financial resources in fulfilling its mandates and the guidance of the Technology Framework under the Paris Agreement. We reiterate our call on developed country Parties to enhance their support to CTCN through the provision of financial and other resources, to enable enhanced actions on technology development and transfer in implementing the Convention and its Paris Agreement.

4. We welcome the successful conclusions of the Fourth Comprehensive Review of the Implementation of the Framework for Capacity Building in Developing Countries under the Convention, the Review of the Paris Committee on Capacity Building, the adoption of the 3rd Annual Technical Progress Report of the Paris Committee on Capacity Building for 2019 and the establishment of the initial Institutional Arrangements for Capacity Building under the Paris Agreement. The Group believes that the conclusion of these agenda items on capacity building will contribute significantly to the implementation of capacity building activities in developing countries.

5. We appreciate the hard work that Parties have put into the text in relation to the 2019 Review of the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage and the report of its Executive Committee. While the proposed decision text reflects as options the texts that the G77 and China had put forward, we note that additional work needs to be done to finalize the decision text on the WIM Review. In particular, we will need to see a strong call for developed countries to provide scaled up, new and additional financing to developing countries to address loss and damage, the establishment of an expert group under the WIM Executive Committee to enhance action and support, and the establishment of the Santiago Network to Address Loss and Damage as a technical network to enhance the broaden access to support and resources and assist development countries in the implementation of loss and damage actions on the ground. We stress, at this point, that we see the WIM as being under the authority of the COP and the CMA.

6. With reference to the agenda item on the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture, the G77 and China welcomes with appreciation the draft conclusions thereon and would like to highlight the need to increase the adaptive capacity of agriculture, particularly in developing countries, to deal with the adverse effects of climate change, in light of the particular vulnerabilities of the agricultural sector and its relationship with food security, poverty eradication, and the livelihood of millions. We reiterate our call for all Parties to engage positively in identifying the future of this work after 2020 by making submissions in this regard between SB52 and SB53 by CoP 26 to ensure that agriculture is being addressed in appropriate manner.

7. With respect to SBI agenda items 3(a) to (c) in relation to the reporting requirements of Annex I Parties under the Convention, the Group is deeply concerned that no flexibility has been shown in response to the proposal of the G77 and China on how these agenda items can be taken forward in light of the fact that no conclusions could be reached at this session. In this context, the G77 and China kindly request you, distinguished Chair of the SBI, to follow the procedure of presenting the outcome of discussions under this agenda item factually, indicating that informal consultations were concluded without any outcome.

8. The Group of G77 and China expresses our deep concern regarding to the lack of progress on the joint SBI Item 7 and SBSTA Item 7a. The Periodic Review was established in 2010 to meet the requirement of Articles 7 and 10 of the Convention. The Group has been engaging constructively and constantly providing bridging proposals. We are deeply concerned and disappointed that some developed country Parties have failed to show constructiveness and refused to move forward on this item established by the Convention and mandated by COP decisions. They deny the foundation and progress achieved by collective efforts of international community in past decades. This will damage the multilateral climate process. The Group urges Parties to resolve this issue to enable the Periodic Review to be implemented expediently so as to ensure the credibility of the multilateral process.

9. On transparency under the Paris Agreement, Parties made further progress at this SBSTA session, particularly on the discussion of tables and reporting formats for inventory and support. The operationalisation of flexibility provisions for developing country Parties that need it in the light of their capacities is an issue that is extremely important to the G77 and China. As such, we welcomed the organisation of a dedicated discussion on flexibility in the Enhanced Transparency Framework at this SBSTA session. However, the discussion on flexibility should not stop here – as a cornerstone of the Enhanced Transparency Framework, Parties will continue to take flexibility issues into account as we work towards achieving our mandate by the next CMA session in November 2020. The G77 and China remains committed to working with our Partners to deliver decisions that would advance our work on the Enhanced Transparency Framework.

10. Another agenda item under this session is reporting and review of Annex I Parties. The Group of 77 and China sees with great concern that some developed countries still have not submitted their 7th National Communication and their 3rd Biennial Report under the Convention. This situation negatively affects trust among parties. It is worth mentioning that the Convention is our universal participation framework to deal with climate change. In addition, the lack of consolidated data of Annex I Parties creates great difficulties to understand the extent of Annex I Parties’ implementation of their pre-2020 commitments with respect to mitigation and the provision of means of implementation by 2020. It was very concerning to our Group that your consultations were concluded without any outcome on this agenda item.

11. On the Reporting from non-Annex I Parties to the Convention, this session also dealt with relevant keystones of the MRV arrangement under the Convention, including the terms of reference of the Consultative Group of Experts. This is relevant not only to the MRV arrangement under the Convention (universal to all Parties) but also to fully complete Paris Agreement architecture implementation. But we are very concerned on the lack of progress made in finalising the terms of reference of the Consultative Group of Experts and the provision of financial and technical support for reporting at this subsidiary body session. It is vital to recall that apart from the discussion of tables, outlines and training programmes, Parties had also agreed in Katowice this time last year that support shall be provided to developing countries to build their capacity for reporting under the Paris Agreement. The lack of progress on these two issues is thus worrying and we urge all Partners to work constructively. Despite the fact that informal consultations were not concluded with a clean decision outcome, the Group is confident that Parties can reach a constructive outcome under the COP 25 here in Madrid.

12. On methodological issues under the Convention, the G77 and China has engaged constructively in all items under agenda item 10. The G77 is positive that decisions were reached on items 10 (b) and (c) following our constructive group positions. However, under agenda items 10(a), (d) and (e), we express concern that informal consultations concluded, without outcome.

13. Under the Common Metrics item, the G77 and China stated that there is a need to complete the mandate on the consideration of the findings of the IPCC AR5. The Group expresses its disappointment for Parties not being able to agree on conclusions. In 2017, the SBSTA reiterated its acknowledgement of the relevance of common metrics to climate change policy. In this context, the G-77 and China regrets that Parties are losing the opportunity to exchange views on the implications of the choice of metrics for climate change policy in an open and transparent manner in 2020, as proposed during the session in here in Madrid. The Group is highly concerned that some developed country Parties continue to insist on focusing the discussion only on reporting and not allowing a more holistic approach to considering the different implications for policies and measures depending on the choice of common metrics. We urge developed country Parties to be flexible in SBSTA 52 to enable substantive conclusions on this very important agenda item.

14. On the Bunker Fuels agenda item, the G77 and China is disappointed at the process and outcomes of the discussion. The Group stresses the need for dialogue with the Secretariats of both IMO and ICAO to suggest how their reports may improve supporting UNFCCC processes while respecting the mandates of those bodies, as well as having a dialogue among Parties on issues arising from their reports that are under the UNFCCC mandate, such as the means of implementation to support developing countries, the effectiveness on their programmes, etc. Considering the mandate present in the decision 4/CP1, the G77 and China would like to request the Secretariat to report to the next SBSTA about the work done to address this issue while ensuring the role of the UNFCCC as a party-driven process.

15. In relation to the GHG data interface, the Group would like to extend its appreciation to the Secretariat on the successful completion of the required work to upgrade the GHG data interface.

16. On response measures under SBI item 16, the Group of 77 and China would like to express its strong concern for not reaching an agreement on the 6-years workplan for the Forum on Response Measures and the KCI. The workplan was mandated from the Katowice decision but we have again at this SB session not concluded our work. The Group would highly stress the importance the 6-year workplan adopted here at COP25.