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DRAFT FINANCIAL RULES OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES, ITS SUBSIDIARY BODIES AND THE PERMANENT SECRETARIAT

Working Group I briefly considered the draft Financial Rules of the COP, its Subsidiary Bodies and the Permanent Secretariat (A/AC.241/45/Rev.1), but all substantive agreements were reached by an informal negotiating group that met Friday, 6 September. Most of the outstanding text left after INCD-8 was resolved, except for the references to the institutional host. Language from the financial rules for the Climate Change Convention was borrowed to: describe the working capital reserve for the General Fund (maintained at a level to be determined from time to time by the COP by consensus); and resources (contributions made each year by Parties on the basis of an indicative scale, adopted by consensus, and based on the UN scale of assessments).

Rule 23 in A/AC.241/45/Rev.2 regarding whether certain financial decisions of the COP shall be adopted “by consensus” or “by consensus whenever possible, and...as a last resort, by a two-thirds majority...” was left in brackets. During the final discussion of the issue, Austria said he and other OECD countries had understood that Rule 23 would be deleted. If not, he had minor amendments to introduce to other parts of the text. The Chair said he would recommend that the rule be deleted when he introduced the text to the closing Plenary. A draft decision was adopted to transmit the revised text to INCD-10 for further consideration.