Local time 23rd, over 120 heads of government worldwide gathered in UN Headquarters, New York for UN Climate Summit 2014. This summit was convened by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in order to pave the way for a new climate deal to be decided at the COP 21 in Paris in 2015. This is the first high-level summit after COP15 Copenhagen. G:HUB’s researchers followed the negotiations on the ground and provided reviews and analyses of the relevant issues.

INDC has been the focus of UNFCCC climate negotiation. Greenovation Hub (G:HUB) welcomes the announcement of Zhang Gaoli, Chinese Vice Premier of the State Council, that China will submit post-2020 climate action plan as soon as possible. GHUB expects China to add coal consumption peak and peak year in the INDC as a short-term emission reduction goal. Meanwhile, GHUB expects China’s INDC should include ambitious long-term goal and set a fair, transparent, and robust review mechanism.

After two weeks of negotiation, 2014’s second UNFCCC intercessional negotiation meeting ended this Sunday in Bonn. This meeting included three tracks—SBI,SBSTA and ADP, as well as two tepid ministerial meetings.

On March 31, 2014, the Working Group II (WGII) contribution to the Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, was published.

2013 witnessed the first moves in exploring and operationalizing carbon pricing in China, with the launch ofChina’s first carbon trading pilots. Drawing from the existing experiences around the world, G:HUB set out toestablish a multi-dimensional assessment framework to evaluate the performance of China’s carbon market. Theframework consists of four aspects, including scheme design, scheme implementation, market performance,transparency and stakeholder engagement. Specific indictors are applied in each aspect to analyze and evaluatethe operation of carbon trading. The Report summarizes the publicly available information related to the sevenpilots and China’s voluntary emissions market up to November 2013, analyses the risks and challenges faced bythe Chinese carbon market, and provides insights and recommendations.

We are 51 Chinese non-governmental environmental protection organizations. We have been actively following Chinese banks’ environmental and social responsibility performances and their national “Green Credit” policy implementation. Recently there has been wide media coverage on the China Coal Bank, which is jointly founded by 15 coal enterprises. We have paid close attention to this and want to express our concerns.