Accra Report 2008

Accra Report 2008: Report of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention on its third session, held in Accra from August 21 to 27 2008
Report of the results of the climate change negotiation session in Accra, Ghana. Issued September 30 2008.

The Report, issued by UNFCCC, describes the outcome of the ongoing climate talks of the so-called "Ad Hoc"-group at its most recent meeting in Accra, Ghana, August 2008. The other meetings in 2008 were the meeting in Bonn, Germany, in June, and Bangkok, Thailand, in April. The Ad Hoc group meets three times a year to make way for the annual COP (Conference of Parties) meetings. Due to the inertia and the detail level inherent in the character of the climate talks, these Ad Hoc meetings usually do not get as much media attention as the more top-level COP climate negotiations.

The report describes how the Accra talks made headway on an arrangement that would focus on limiting carbon emissions by specific industries such as power generation, steel or cement. In a second area of progress, the Accra delegates agreed that countries should be compensated for slowing or halting deforestation, and that countries where forests have largely been depleted should be rewarded for conserving and expanding their remaining forest cover. Thirdly, new and detailed proposals were also suggested for raising the hundreds of billions of dollars needed to help poor countries grapple with the effects of climate change.