Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Loreleï Charlot (OECD) and Benjamin Carvajal Ponce (IEA) for their background research and inputs to this paper, and OECD colleagues Sirini Jeudy-Hugo, as well as Geraldine Ang, Valentina Bellesi, Takayoshi Kato, Xavier Leflaive, Jens Sedemund, Cecilia Tam, Klas Wetterberg, Robert Youngman and IEA colleague Kieran McNamara for their comments and feedback on earlier drafts of the paper. The authors would also like to thank Chao Feng (Australia), Geert Fremout (Belgium), Marianne Karlsen (Norway), Elizabeth Rowe (United Kingdom), Bernd Hackmann (UNFCCC), Tara Shine (Change by Degrees), Leon Charles (Independent consultant), Amanda McKee and Romeo Bertolini (NDC Partnership), Harald Winkler (University of Cape Town, South Africa), Ubaldo Elizondo, Chinwe Binitie, Laura Alonzo (World Bank) for their comments and views. The authors would also like to thank facilitators, presenters and attendees at the March 2023 CCXG Global Forum on the Environment and Climate Change, whose views and feedback helped shape the final paper

The CCXG Secretariat would like to thank Australia (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), Belgium (Federal Public Service Health, Food Chain Safety, Environment), Canada (Environment and Climate Change Canada), the European Commission, Finland (Ministry of the Environment), Germany (Federal Foreign Office), Italy (Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security), Japan (Ministry of the Environment), Netherlands (Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy), New Zealand (Ministry for the Environment), Norway (Ministry of Climate and Environment), Republic of Korea (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Sweden (Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and Swedish Energy Agency), Switzerland (Federal Office for the Environment), the United Kingdom (Cabinet Office) and the United States (Department of State) for their direct funding of the CCXG in 2022/2023, and the OECD, the IEA, and Belgium for their in-kind support of the CCXG in 2022/2023.

Questions and comments should be sent to:

Jane Ellis

OECD Environment Directorate

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Email: Jane.Ellis@oecd.org

Luca Lo Re

IEA

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Email: Luca.lore@iea.org

All OECD and IEA information papers for the Climate Change Expert Group on the UNFCCC can be downloaded from: www.oecd.org/environment/cc/ccxg.htm

Parties established the Mitigation Work Programme (MWP) at COP26 to ”urgently scale up mitigation ambition and implementation” to help reach the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement At COP27, Parties further fleshed out the MWP, which will be operationalised each year between 2023-2026 via at least two global dialogues, other dialogues and investment-focused events. This paper outlines key questions that could shape the aims, scope, focus, format, and participation in the dialogues, as well as the possible interplay between the MWP global dialogues and investment-focused events by drawing on experiences with other processes and events inside and outside the UNFCCC. This paper also provides lessons from examples in three sub-sectors where mitigation actions have been rapidly scaled up. This paper highlights several open questions related to the substance, process, and timing of the global dialogues and the investment-focused events, as well as potential linkages between these. The paper also discusses possible implications of different choices on these open questions. Decisions on the scope, format, and aims of the MWP dialogues will influence their impacts and the relevance of these dialogues to different countries and stakeholders. Yet, dialogues and events under the MWP will face trade-offs between concentrating on short- versus longer-term issues and outcomes and on choosing a broad or narrow focus. Such choices will impact how many countries the event or dialogue is relevant to. In addition, there are various ongoing initiatives and events outside the UNFCCC that are relevant to the aims of the MWP and that the MWP could usefully learn from. Careful mapping and co-ordination are needed to ensure that the MWP builds on, rather than duplicates, existing initiatives and events within and beyond the UNFCCC

JEL Classifications: Q54, Q56, Q58, H70, F53, E22

Keywords: UNFCCC, climate change, Paris Agreement, Mitigation work programme, global dialogues, investment-focused events