The 22nd edition of the UN-sponsored climate meet is the first global gathering since the Paris Agreement entered into effect on Friday. So far, 100 countries have formally joined the agreement. India joined the Paris Agreement on October 2. The entry into force of the Paris Agreement has resulted in two sets of countries—those that have formally joined the agreement and those that are in the process. This presents a problem as not all countries can legally be part of the decision making process. However, to maintain the spirit inclusiveness that has come to define climate negotiations, countries will decide to continue with the discussion as if the agreement is not in force, by suspending the mandated format till a later date when all countries have ratified the agreement.

The meeting at Marrakech will focus on discussions that will ensure that the overarching agreement reached in Paris can be effectively implemented and is expected to focus on finance, bringing about some uniformity in the climate actions that each country has pledged to undertake domestically, efforts to adapt to climate change and financing for adaptation, devising a transparency mechanism that will help ensure accountability and ensure that countries live up to their commitments, and designing a system that will help countries increase their efforts to tackle climate change so that the goal of keeping temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius is achieved.

Finance is expected to a flashpoint. Industrialised countries are committed to provide $100 billion a year that would be used by developing countries to pay for actions to tackle climate change. The progress on meeting this commitment has been slow, and been contentious with developing countries stressing on the mismatch between promise and reality. A recent roadmap prepared by the United Kingdom and Australia reports that developed countries are on the way to fulfill this commitment, estimating that $62billion in public funding was provided in 2014. However, the methodology used for arriving at this figure is the same one used last year by the OECD that was contested by developing countries.

Another issue that is expected to occupy the negotiators is that of the global stock take or the process by which countries will periodically and collectively assess the progress made towards restricting temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

The global stock take is also one of the instruments of the Paris Agreement that seek to push countries to increase their efforts to slow down global warming. At Marrakech, countries will decide on contours of this exercise, which will focus on both actions to reduce climate pollution and provision of finance and technology to help developing countries take measures. The first global stock taking is slated for 2023. This will be preceded by the facilitative dialogue in 2018, which is a dry run of sorts and will assess all efforts in the pre-2020 period.

Other issues that will be addressed over the next fortnight include loss and damage, transparency, adaptation, and efforts in the pre-2020 period.

India has said it will push the agenda of sustainable lifestyle, mobilising finances, which has been its "overriding" concern, and efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the pre-2020 period. "Enhanced pre-2020 action and mobilising finance in both pre-2020 and post-2020 period remains an overriding concern for India and the group of developing countries. Access to adequate and predictable climate finance especially from funds under the Convention, is needed for successful implementation of the Paris Agreement," said a senior environment ministry.