As we continue to live and work under the shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions on travel and the convening of large meetings remain in place. The Ozone Secretariat, after consulting the bureaux of the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer and the Thirty-First Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, the co-chairs of the forty-second meeting of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG42), as well as many parties, suggests to conduct the combined twelfth meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Vienna Convention and the Thirty-Second Meeting of Parties to the Montreal Protocol (COP12/MOP32) online.
Meetings in 2020
Proposed arrangements for COP12(I)/MOP32 in November 2020
The combined twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention, part I, and the Thirty-Second Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol (COP12(I)/MOP32) will be convened as an online meeting with a reduced agenda. The preparatory segment will take place from Monday, 23 November 2020 to Thursday, 26 November 2020, and the high-level segment will take place on Friday, 27 November 2020 from 2 - 4 p.m. EAT each day with possibility of an additional extra hour should parties decide to have additional time.
COP12 will be held in two parts. Part I will be convened this year to decide on the budget of the Vienna Convention Trust Fund for 2020 (revised) and 2021 only. All the other agenda items that refer to the Convention will be addressed in COP12 part II in 2021.
- MOP32 will address few issues as found in the agenda of the meeting
Preparatory work will be needed in order to better prepare parties and facilitate their discussions during the online meeting. The online forum will be the forum used for the preparatory work on the specific agenda items of COP12(I)/MOP32 and will be open from 1 October 2020.
The related meetings that will take place immediately prior to COP12(I)/MOP32 are:
- the sixty-fifth meeting of the Implementation Committee under the Non-Compliance Procedure for the Montreal Protocol, online, 16-18 November 2020;
- the joint meeting of the bureaux of the eleventh meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention and the Thirty-First Meeting of Parties to the Montreal Protocol, online, 21 November 2020.
Meetings in 2021
OEWG42 part II, on replenishment of the Multilateral Fund for 2021-2023
A second part of OEWG42 focusing on the issue of replenishment may be convened as a face-to-face meeting in March 2021 to discuss the need for and content of a supplementary report. The Secretariat has made a tentative booking for the OEWG42 part II on replenishment to be held on 15 and 16 March 2021 in Montreal, Canada.
The parties may task the Technology and Economic Assessment Panel to prepare a supplementary report in time for consideration by the parties at the forty-third meeting of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG43) in July 2021.
If a face-to-face meeting in the first quarter of 2021 is not possible due to the pandemic, then the suggested timeline will be adjusted accordingly.
OEWG43: Bangkok, 12-16 July 2021
The forty-third meeting of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG43) is scheduled to be held from 12-16 July 2021 in Bangkok. All the agenda items that were deferred from the OEWG42 would be included in the agenda of OEWG43. In addition, any other issue that the parties may wish to discuss in 2021 can also be included.
The sixty-sixth meeting of the Implementation Committee will be held on 11 July 2021.
COP12(II)/MOP33: Nairobi (tentative), 25-29 October 2021 (tentative)
Part II of COP12 will address all issues including the recommendations of the eleventh meeting of the Ozone Research Managers (ORM11), which is now rescheduled to be convened in April 2021, matters related to the trust fund for monitoring and research and the budget of the Vienna Convention Trust Fund for the triennium 2022-2024. The Thirty-Third Meeting of the Parties (MOP33) will address all issues that MOP32 would have addressed in 2020 if a full-scale, physical meeting had been held, plus any new issues that may arise.
Other related meetings to be convened immediately prior to COP12(II)/MOP33 are:
- the sixty-seventh meeting of the Implementation Committee, 23 October 2021
- the joint meeting of the bureaux of the twelfth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Vienna Convention and the Thirty-Second Meeting of the Parties, 24 October 2021
Eleventh Meeting of the Ozone Research Managers (ORM11)
The ORM11, part I, will be held online on 7-8 October 2020 to discuss only the issue of international monitoring programmes, namely the gaps in the global coverage of atmospheric monitoring of substances controlled by the Montreal Protocol.
ORM11, part II, will be held from on 14 to 16 April 2021 in Geneva to discuss all remaining issues set out in the agenda of the meeting taking also stock of the discussion on the gaps in monitoring of controlled substances discussed in ORM11(I). The recommendations will be passed on for the consideration of COP12(II).