Agreements on emissions monitoring, reporting and verification, which are precursors to future legally binding climate control targets, are expected to come out of the climate change conference in Cancun Mexico this week.

The UN's annual climate change summit, COP16 will run from Nov 29 - December 10, continuing to seek a follow-on agreement for the Kyoto Protocol, which will expire in 2012.
Last year's COP15 meeting was in Copenhagen. The Cancun meeting is not expected to have the same high profile attendance from world leaders.

Instead, environment and foreign ministers from 194 countries will attempt to make deals on smaller issues like deforestation, green technology transfer and financing.

As well as being the16th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Mexico meeting is also the sixth session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, CMP 6.

The meeting also comprises the 33rd sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies, the 15th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) and the 13th session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the UNFCCC.

The focus of the Cancun meeting is on enhancing long-term international climate change cooperation. It continues a two track negotiating process - the Bali Roadmap - agreed by the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali in December 2007.

The original deadline for completing negotiations under both the Convention and the Protocol was the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, held in December 2009, but as many issues remained outstanding, the mandates of the two AWGs were extended until Cancún where they will report their respective outcomes to COP 16 and CMP 6.