to the provision of climate finance, the disturbing trend of making developing countries pay for their own costs by shifting the financing modalities of the Convention and Paris Agreement’s financial operating entities, such as the GEF and the GCF, from grants to loans is reversed.

Distinguished Chairs,

On behalf of the Group, let me also highlight some of the challenges that we experienced at this session which we hope will not be repeated at COP25 and SB51.

First, the positions of our partners on many of the agenda items seem to indicate a distinct willingness to focus on the Paris Agreement and to leave the Convention behind. This is not consistent with the letter and the spirit of the Paris Agreement and the foundation of the Convention upon which we all work. The Convention and the Agreement are intrinsically linked and are both important in fostering ambitious action that ensures that we do not cross irreversible climate thresholds before it is too late.

Second, trust and the transparency and inclusivity of our processes upon which that trust is built remain major challenges. A key element in this is the fact that at this session, many of the Group’s members found themselves unable to participate actively in many of the negotiating sessions on the various agenda items because of the many instances in which meetings for an agenda item were scheduled at times that conflicted with meetings of another related agenda item. We have commented on this a number of times and while we note that some improvement did take place, much more needs to be done by the Chairs and the Secretariat to avoid such scheduling conflicts. Another key element for trust building is confidence that we are all negotiating in good faith under both the Convention and its Paris Agreement. Actions from our partners such as unilateral coercive economic measures or politicizing climate financing also erode trust.

Third, balance is extremely important to the Group. This applies to both procedure and substance. We expect balanced treatment from the Chairs and the Secretariat when it comes to working with Parties; and we also expect balanced treatment when it comes to the prioritization of issues or agenda items so that the issues of interest to the Group are also given priority.

Related to this, we have as a Group exerted our best efforts arrive at agreed conclusions on difficult issues such as the budget, on Article 6, and on other agenda items. We would also like to deliver our assessment of the various agenda items covered at this session.

Transparency under the Paris Agreement

The CMA gave SBSTA the mandate to complete work on the outstanding matters to operationalize the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) by CMA.3 in November 2020. It may seem like we have ample time to deliver on this mandate, but the reality is that we have only 1.5 years left. We will need to act fast to develop the mandated reporting tables, formats and outlines, as well as a training programme for the technical experts. The Group is pleased that there was good progress made at this session to unpack the modalities, procedures and guidelines (MPGs) and start visualizing tables, formats and timelines. There was a fruitful discussion on the ETF in general and on the sub-agenda items among G77/China delegations, and this fed into the rich exchange of views in the contact group sessions and informal consultations. Nonetheless, more work needs to be done at SBSTA 51,

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