2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference
Date | 30 November 2015 12 December 2015 | –
---|---|
Location | Le Bourget in the suburbs of Paris, France |
Also known as | COP21 (UNFCCC) CMP11 (Kyoto Protocol) |
Participants | Parties to the UNFCCC |
Previous event | ← Lima 2014 |
Next event | Marrakech 2016 → |
Website | Venue site UNFCCC site |
The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015.
The conference negotiated the Paris Agreement, a global agreement on the reduction of climate change, the text of which represented a consensus of the representatives of the 196 attending parties.[3] The agreement was due to enter into force when joined by at least 55 countries which together represented at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.,[4][5][6] a target reached on 4 November 2016.[7] On 22 April 2016 (Earth Day), 174 countries signed the agreement in New York, [8] and began adopting it within their own legal systems (through ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession).
According to the organizing committee at the outset of the talks,
Prior to the conference, 146 national climate panels publicly presented a draft of national climate contributions (called "
A number of meetings took place in preparation for COP21, including the Bonn Climate Change Conference, 19 to 23 October 2015, which produced a draft agreement.[12]
Background
According to the organizing committee of the summit in Paris, the objective of the 2015 conference was to achieve, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, a binding and universal agreement on climate.[13]
Location and participation
The location of UNFCCC talks is rotated by regions throughout United Nations countries. The 2015 conference was held at Le Bourget from 30 November[15] to 12 December 2015.
To some extent, France served as a model country for delegates attending COP21 because it is one of the few developed countries in the world to decarbonize electricity production and fossil fuel energy while still providing a high standard of living.[16] As of 2012, France generated over 90% of its electricity from zero carbon sources, including nuclear, hydroelectric, and wind.[citation needed]
The conference took place two weeks after a series of terrorist attacks in the 10th and 11th Arrondissements of Paris, as well as in Saint-Denis. Martial law was declared and national security was tightened accordingly, with 30,000 police officers and 285 security checkpoints deployed across the country until after the conference ended.[17]
The European Union and 195 nations (see list in reference)[18] were the participating parties.
Negotiations
The overarching goal of the Convention is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase. Since COP 17 this increase is set at 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels.[19] However, Christiana Figueres acknowledged in the closing briefing at the 2012 Doha conference: "The current pledges under the second commitment period of the Kyoto protocol are clearly not enough to guarantee that the temperature will stay below 2 °C and there is an ever increasing gap between the action of countries and what the science tells us."
During previous climate negotiations, countries agreed to outline actions they intended to take within a global agreement, by 1 October 2015. These commitments are known as
Think-tanks such as the World Pensions Council (WPC) argued that the keys to success lay in convincing officials in the U.S. and China, by far the two largest national emitters: "As long as policy makers in Washington and Beijing didn't put all their political capital behind the adoption of ambitious carbon-emission capping targets, the laudable efforts of other G20 governments often remained in the realm of pious wishes. Things changed for the better on 12 November 2014 when President Obama and General Secretary Xi Jinping agreed to limit greenhouse gases emissions."[22]
President
Outcome
On 12 December 2015, the participating 196 countries agreed, by consensus, to the final[25] global pact, the Paris Agreement, to reduce emissions as part of the method for reducing greenhouse gas. In the 12-page document,[4] the members agreed to reduce their carbon output "as soon as possible" and to do their best to keep global warming "to well below 2 degrees C".[26] In the course of the debates, island states of the Pacific, the Seychelles, but also the Philippines, their very existence threatened by sea level rise, had strongly voted for setting a goal of 1.5 °C instead of only 2 °C.[27][28] France's Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, said this "ambitious and balanced" plan was an "historic turning point" in the goal of reducing global warming.[29] However, some others criticized the fact that significant sections are "promises" or aims and not firm commitments by the countries.[30]
Non-binding commitments, lack of enforcement mechanisms
The Agreement will not become binding on its member states until 55 parties who produce over 55% of the world's greenhouse gas have ratified the Agreement. There is doubt whether some countries, especially the United States,[31] will agree to do so, though the United States publicly committed, in a joint Presidential Statement with China, to joining the Agreement in 2016.[3]
Each country that ratifies the agreement will be required to set a target for emission reduction or limitation, called a "nationally determined contribution", or NDC, but the amount will be voluntary.
Some analysts have also observed that the stated objectives of the Paris Agreement are implicitly "predicated upon an assumption – that member states of the United Nations, including high polluters such as China, US, India, Canada, Russia, Indonesia and Australia, which generate more than half the world's greenhouse gas emissions, will somehow drive down their carbon pollution voluntarily and assiduously without any binding enforcement mechanism to measure and control CO2 emissions at any level from factory to state, and without any specific penalty gradation or fiscal pressure (for example a carbon tax) to discourage bad behaviour."[38]
Institutional investors' contribution to limiting fossil fuels
Speaking at the
Some US policy makers concurred, notably Al Gore, insisting that "no agreement is perfect, and this one must be strengthened over time, but groups across every sector of society will now begin to reduce dangerous carbon pollution through the framework of this agreement."[40]
Declarations of non-state parties
As is usual before such major conferences, major NGOs and groups of governments have drafted and published a wide variety of declarations they intend to seek a consensus on, at the Paris conference itself. These include at least the following major efforts:
- Triple Bottom Lineframework arising from that, and other local efforts.
- European capital and large cities for climate action en route to COP 21 Declaration, adopted 26 March 2015 by "representatives of EU capitals and large cities of 28 EU Member States at the Mayors Meeting organized by Anne Hidalgo, Mayor of Paris, and Ignazio Marino, Mayor of Rome, who argue that "urban areas exposed to climate change are also essential innovation testing zones",[43] which is the focus of the ICLEI mechanisms, metrics and 2005 declaration.
- Private, corporate and private-public partnerships
- At the World Summit of Regions for Climate (WSRC) in Paris 2014, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Founder of R20, invited a coalition of governments, businesses and investors to sign a draft "Paris Declaration" at World Climate Summit in Lima 2014, World Green Economy Summit 2015 in Dubai and COP21.[44]
- The Shift Project by French business organizations.[45]
- Indigenous peoples efforts include:
- Asian indigenous peoples declaration[46]
- A vast range of groups and peoples "seeking presence in post-2015" development, e.g. the Centre for Autonomy and Development of Indigenous People in Nicaragua[49]
- Many indigenous polities and sovereignties seeking recognition under the hydraulic fracturing and Energy East, has announced it will send a diplomatic representative regarding events in 2013 in New Brunswick that highlighted the relative imbalance of power to resist fossil fuelcorporations even on unceded lands:
- "Canada is the home to 75% of the worlds [sic] mining corporations, and they have tended to have relative impunity in the Canadian Courts" - Winona LaDuke[52]
- Women's Earth and Climate Action Network seeking "powerful submissions by worldwide women" sharing "stories, struggles, solutions and action plans ... [a] women's climate justice mobilization"[53]
- Countries of the Mediterranean Sea. Dam Bridge, Strait of Gibraltar, S.A. (PPEGSA). The first draft PresaPuente adapting to climate change is designed to protect the Mediterranean from the imminent rising waters caused by the polar thaw. More than 24 countries, over 500 million people, more than 15,000 islands and thousands of kilometres of coast which can be saved from flooding.
- A vast range of other activities[57] in preparation to influence the major decisions at the conference.
Financing
The conference was budgeted to cost
Demonstrations
Around the world, 600,000 took part in demonstrations in favour of a strong agreement, such as the
On 30 November, the first day of the conference, a "
See also
References
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External links
Media related to 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference at Wikimedia Commons
- Official French website
- Official UN website
- Official Paris Climate Conference
- Gillis, Justin (2015-11-28). "Short Answers to Hard; Questions About Climate Change". NYT. Retrieved 2016-08-10.
- COP21 questions and answers. Video by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
- Why COP21 matters, and how climate change impacts sustainable development. Video by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
- Background on COP21 from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Archived 2020-12-07 at the Wayback Machine
- A Plan to strengthen the Paris Agreement
- NOAA State of the Climate