Keep temperature rise to 1.5 degrees over pre-industrial levels. The text will be taken up for consideration and adoption later this evening.
The agreement comes after unprecedented negotiations involving 196 member-parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and intense pressure from civil society organisations.
Major features of the text outlined by French Foreign Minister and CoP21 president Laurent Fabius are:
>> It takes into account the differentiation and responsibility of developing countries, and their respective capacities in light of national circumstances
>> Confirms the key objective of containing mean global temperature rise well below 2 degrees Celsius and to endeavour to limit it to 1.5 degrees Draft Paris Agreement
>> There will be five-yearly national contributions on actions taken to address climate change
>> There is provision for adaptation to climate change. Cooperation on loss and damage suffered by countries on a long term basis to provide necessary means to all countries for durable development.
>> Provision of 100 billion per year as a floor by 2020 to help developing nations.
>> A new figure to be defined for the period between now and 2020.
>> Collective stocktaking every five years of national actions and consideration of steps if efforts are insufficient for the objective set.
The French Minister warned that failure to conclude the text would lead to irrevocable loss of the credibility of multilateral process and the commitment to respond to international challenges. With agreement, various countries would get help to pursue their major concerns — Pacific and Caribbean countries to avoid destructive sea level rise, Africa for technological development, Latin America to preserve its forests and countries depending on fossil fuel energy to achieve energy diversification.
Shortly before the text was released, the so-called High Ambition Coalition of about 100 countries including the United States, Norway, Mexico, Colombia — of which India is not part — announced that they had made a “final push”.
These countries have sought a 1.5 degree target, and strict norms for emerging economies on transparency, measurement, verification and reporting regimes.
The official document of the UN Climate Deal was released in the evening of 12 December.
However, many of us will benefit if we learn the many terms associated with the Paris Conference:
COP21: COP stands for the Conference of Parties. This refers to the countries which have signed the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The leaders of these countries meet annually to discuss ways to combat climate change. Because the Paris Conference was the 21st such meeting, it was nicknamed as COP21.
CBDR: This was the major hurdle that negotiators had to overcome in this year’s Conference. CBDR stands for ‘Common But Differentiated Responsibilities’. This is a principle preserved in the UNFCCC that recognizes that different countries have different obligations to combat climate change. This means that richer countries like the US have to cut down emissions to a greater extent than developing countries like India – due to obvious reasons. Richer countries wanted to do away with this principle before the start of the Paris Conference, and it has been the core factor which rendered the previous Conferences as failures.
Pre-2020 Ambition: Most actions taken by individual countries in accordance with the Paris Agreement won’t actually take effect until 2020. But the years 2016 – 2020 will be crucial to ensure the safety of our planet. As such, nations need to be committed to the clauses of the Agreement from today itself and not wait until 2020.
ADP: This stands for the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action. It was a subsidiary body formed in Durban in 2011 (COP17). Its mandate was to develop a protocol and a global legal instrument which would be agreeable to all countries so that the same could be signed in 2015. The ADP was formed with focus on clinching an agreement during COP21.
