The report surveys current proposals and positions on issues such as differentiated participation of countries in the new agreement, a differentiated spectrum of commitments, effort sharing and options for how to organise the negotiation process. The report finds that for the level of participation, the selection of commitment types, and choice of effort-sharing approaches there is no silver bullet. A portfolio approach that incorporates multiple options may be most suited to ensure environmental effectiveness, cost- effectiveness and political feasibility.
This report is a synthesis of the research and re-evaluates the options previously considered in this project (Vieweg et al (2014)) in the light of the negotiation process up to today. The mitigation-related design elements considered are:
Participation and differentiation of countries; Types of commitments, including also the compulsory character of the commitments and time aspects; Guidance on ambition of the commitments to assure adequacy of global and individual countries' efforts; Transparency of commitments.