The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21 or CMP11) will be held at the Le Bourget, Paris, from the 30th November to the 11th December 2015.

 

The objective of the Convention is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate from all the nations of the world.

 

Why is this conference so important?

 

Our consumption of earth's natural resources is at a rate of 25% greater than the earth's ability to replenish them and to sustain life on earth. We're now experiencing accelerated climate change: extreme weather, more droughts, acidifying oceans and the melting of the polar ice caps. We've already helped to destroy half of the world's wildlife since 1970 and according to the IPCC, the prospects for the next 40 years aren't looking so great either:

 

http://www.wri.org/resources/data-visualizations/infographic-choose-your-future-4-possible-emissions-pathways

 

Climate scientists have warned that if we continue to pump out greenhouse gases at the current rate, and we reach a temperature rise of 2°C above pre-industrial levels, we will pass a threshold beyond which climate change causes catastrophic and irreversible effects. As the link to the above infographic shows, that's going to result in bad news for all of us. The Paris Conference represents our very best hope to get world governments and businesses back on track to make sure this doesn't happen. As it stands today, we are headed for a rise of about 5°C.

 

On 8 December 2012, at the end of the 2012 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Doha, an agreement was reached to extend the Kyoto Protocol to 2020 and to set a date of 2015 for the development of a successor document, to be implemented from 2020. So governments at the Paris conference are expected to make good on this promise and decide upon where we go from 2020.

 

The importance of Copenhagen

 

It was an historic event; one which attracted as much appraisal as it did condemnation. But whilst many were quick to point out the fundamental flaws in the negotiating system at Copenhagen 2009 (COP15), it might have been unrealistic from the start to have expected a meeting between 196 countries to come to agreement on just about anything.

 

The unlikely pairing of science and politics was at that time still something of a work in progress, and the realisations of these flaws had importantly provided a vital step forward in understanding how best to approach climate change negotiations in the future. These conclusions took place in the form of the Copenhagen Accord, the Green Meeting Protocol (designed by COP15's six organising agencies), and the subsequent Lima and Durban Conferences. The Copenhagen Accord has since served as a political tool that has had broad support at a high level and has been usefully employed in negotiations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copenhagen helped produced an annual fund for climate mitigation and adaptation financing in poor countries and helped Europe realise the capability and experience it needed to integrate climate change in its model for growth and development and in its relations with third countries. Copenhagen was also crucial in putting it out there that there was still much work to do. European researchers from Ecofys, Climate Analytics and the Potsdam Institute in Germany concluded that the pledges made in Copenhagen would lead to a global temperature rising "over" 3°C. Similar studies carried out by researchers from the Sustainability Institute, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Ventana Systems in the US had calculated that emissions reduction pledges would allow global mean temperature to increase approximately 3.9°C. Certainly a little better, but clearly nowhere near enough to hold global temperatures to the summit's agreed goal of no more than a 2°C rise.

 

There is little doubt that many went into Copenhagen with unrealistically high expectations, but that was 2009. A lot has changed in the past 6 years: including the accelerated effects of climate change which have surpassed climate scientist's predictions. There are no two ways about it: a global agreement on climate change must be delivered at Paris.

 

But at the same time it might be prudent to lay down some realistic expectations. If the agreement may not turn out to be legally binding with immediate effect, it should at least provide the framework to become legally binding when the time is right. Paris should be about bringing everybody on board. Not just governments, but NGOs, financial institutions and corporates. All countries of the world need to step up and take equal responsibility for this.

 

On the whole, the message so far seems to be positive, and one which we hope will bring truth to the not-so-silent prediction we have at Sustain Europe: that the end of 2015 will be remembered as the single most significant event which changed the course of human and natural history forever.

 

We hope, and lest we be proved otherwise: we believe.

 

 

 

 

 

To find out more about the United Nations Climate Change Conference, you can read our latest edition.

 

World leaders stayed up throughout the night in the hope of thrashing out an agreement

IMAGE: Steffen Kugler