U.N. Climate Change Conference

Written on: December 29, 2015

The UN Climate Change Conference took place in Paris, France from November 30 to December 11, 2015. According to the organizing committee, the objective of this conference was to achieve, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, a binding and universal agreement on climate, from all the nations of the world.

The long awaited Climate Conference in Paris is now history and will go down as a fairly successful chapter in World History books.

A deal was reached at the UN climate conference of parties (COP) that  has been hailed as a landmark decision. The deal agreed to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than 2C. The pact is the first to commit all countries to cut carbon emissions.  The agreement is partly legally binding and partly voluntary.

Nearly 200 countries took part in the negotiations to strike the first climate deal to commit all countries to cut emissions, which would come into being in 2020.

The chairman of the group representing some of the world’s poorest countries called the deal historic, adding: “We are living in unprecedented times, which call for unprecedented measures.

“It is the best outcome we could have hoped for, not just for the Least Developed Countries, but for all citizens of the world.”

President Barack Obama hailed the agreement as “ambitious” and “historic”, but also warned against complacency. “Together, we’ve shown what’s possible when the world stands as one,” he said.

Key points

The measures in the agreement included:

• To peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible and achieve a balance between sources and sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century
• To keep global temperature increase “well below” 2C (3.6F) and to pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5C
• To review progress every five years
• $100 billion a year in climate finance for developing countries by 2020, with a commitment to further finance in the future.

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