The 20th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Lima comes to a close on 12 December 2014. It is supposed to set the stage for the final year of negotiations on a new global agreement to fight climate change to be adopted at the 21st COP in Paris in December 2015. The Lima Conference is expected to agree on elements of a negotiating text for the Paris agreement as well as further guidelines on the information to be submitted with countries’ “intended nationally determined contributions” to global climate protection from the first quarter of 2015. A full negotiating text is then to appear during the first half of 2015 and will need to be fine-tuned until Paris.The Policy Forum is going to take stock of the Lima Conference and the role of the EU in Lima and beyond. Have countries made significant and sufficient progress towards a sensible and effective Paris agreement? What has been the impact of the joint announcement of China and the US in November 2014 about their future climate action (if any)? To what extent has the EU achieved its main objectives in Lima? What priorities for global and EU climate diplomacy in 2015 can be identified at the end of 2014?These questions guide the contributions to and discussion at the Policy Forum that features the following speakers:• Elina Bardram, European Commission, DG CLIMA, Head of Unit ‘International and Inter-Institutional Relations’ • Rosalind Cook, Senior Policy Advisor, E3G – Third Generation Environmentalism • Sebastian Oberthür, IES Research Professor Environment and Sustainable Development