Negotiating the Paris Rulebook: introduction to the special issue

At COP24 in Katowice in December 2018, Parties to the Paris Agreement on climate change are due to adopt the 'Paris Rulebook', with a view to providing detailed guidance to Parties in the implementation of the Agreement. Negotiations on the Paris Rulebook cover a variety of issues that were left unresolved in Paris, including further guidance for the contents and features of Parties' five-yearly nationally determined contributions (NDCs), accounting rules, modalities for the Agreement's review mechanisms (transparency framework, global stocktake and implementation and compliance mechanism), and rules for the operation of the new cooperative mechanisms established by the Agreement. With COP24 fast approaching, this special issue offers an overview of the negotiations on the Rulebook. In this introductory overview, we summarise the various contributions, place them in the broader context of international climate cooperation, and highlight interlinkages between the various issues under negotiation. We conclude with a brief discussion of the possible out- comes of the negotiations process, and the likely implications of the Paris Rulebook going forward.