COP21: launch of international climate negotiations

The challenges of COP21

This agreement must be universal and lasting. It will have to give the economic and political signals, so that the economic development model embarks on a new trajectory, which must lead to carbon neutrality as well as respect for the 2 ° C objective (that is to say - say that the global warming of temperatures is kept below + 2 ° C).

The objective is to build a “Paris Climate Alliance”, which will contain the rise in the average temperature of the planet below 1,5 ° C or 2 ° C compared to pre-industrial and adapt our societies to existing deregulations. This Alliance will be broken down into four parts:

1. the negotiation of a universal agreement *, in accordance with the Durban mandate, which establishes rules and mechanisms capable of gradually raising the ambition to respect the limit of 1.5 or 2 ° C;
2. the presentation by all the countries of their national contributions, before COP21, in order to create a ripple effect and to demonstrate that all the States are advancing, according to their national realities, in the same direction;
3. the financial component, which should support developing countries and finance the transition to low-carbon and resilient economies before and after 2020;
4. strengthening the commitments of civil society and non-state actors and multi-partner initiatives in the solutions agenda, in order to involve all the actors and initiate concrete actions without waiting for the entry into force of the future agreement in 2020.

This legally binding universal agreement must be:

• a universal agreement, concluded by all, and applicable to all countries;
• an ambitious agreement, which allows to stay below 1,5 or 2 ° C and sends economic players the signals necessary to initiate the transition to the low-carbon economy;
• a flexible agreement, which takes into account national circumstances, the respective needs and capacities of developing countries and the specificities of certain countries, in particular the least developed and small islands;
• a balanced agreement between mitigation and adaptation, which provides for adequate means of implementation, in terms of financing, access to technology and capacity building;
• a lasting and dynamic agreement, with a long-term objective in line with the limit of 1,5 or 2 ° C which can guide and strengthen action against climate change, with a periodic review of the level of ambition .

Historical overview of the negotiations

International negotiations to combat climate change have grown steadily since Rio in 1992. After the entry into force of the Kyoto Protocol in 2005, a longer-term vision has emerged with the Bali plan in 2007, then validation in Copenhagen in 2009 of a common objective aimed at containing global warming at 2 ° C.

Cancun in 2010 then made it possible to achieve this objective by creating dedicated institutions on key points, including adaptation to the effects of climate change, the Green Climate Fund or the technological mechanism.

The desire to act collectively resulted in the creation, in 2011, of the Durban platform (ADP), whose mission is to bring together around the table all countries, developed and developing, in order to work on a “protocol, legal instrument or result having the force of law” which will be applicable to all Parties to the UN climate convention. "The new instrument" will have to be adopted in 2015 and implemented from 2020. It is expected that before the end of May 2015, a draft of the text of the agreement translated into all the languages ​​of the United Nations will be sent to the parties.

The Doha conference ratified the commitment of several industrialized countries in a second period of commitment to the Kyoto Protocol (2013/2020) and ended the mandate of Bali. The conferences in Warsaw in 2013 and in Lima in 2014 made it possible to take the necessary steps to reach Paris in 2015: all the States will have to communicate their contributions in terms of greenhouse gas reduction before COP21. Contributions will be aggregated and synthesized by the UNFCCC by the end of October.

The additional negotiation forums at the UNFCCC

The development of a multilateral climate regime, which involves developed and developing countries, has as counterpart the introduction of the subject in several forums outside the United Nations and its Framework Convention (UNFCCC) which are as many opportunities for heads of state and ministers to discuss the problem.

Supporting political processes

• The G7
• The G20
• The MEF (Major Economies Forum, a United States-led gathering of major economies responsible for 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions)
• The Petersberg Dialogue (initiative launched in 2010 by Germany in order to facilitate the work undertaken by the successive presidencies of the COPs to the UNFCCC in an informal manner and limited to the main players in the negotiations)
• The Cartagena Dialogue informally brings together some forty developed and developing countries which have chosen to join the Copenhagen agreement, anxious to facilitate the continuation of the UN negotiations and to fight effectively against climate change.

Sectoral initiatives

• The Coalition for Climate and Clean Air (CCAC): initiative, launched in February 2012 by some countries as well as the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), which aims to focus technological and financial efforts on reducing short-lived climate forcers (methane, carbon black (or carbon soot) and fluorinated gases).
• The REDD + partnership: grouping together around fifty countries, representative of the major global forest basins (Africa, Latin America and Asia) and the main donor countries in the forest, to deepen and implement the international mechanism to combat deforestation resulting from from Copenhagen.
• The Clean Energy Ministerial, an American-inspired process from the MEF.
• Energy technology fora: the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) - the Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI), the International Partnership for Cooperation on energy efficiency (IPEEC), created by the G8 in June 2009.

The other UN forums

• ICAO and IMO: difficult to attribute to a particular State, emissions from fuels used in air and maritime transport are not covered by the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol. The latter provides for their limitation to pass through the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO).
• The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) which hosts the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
• SE4All: initiative "Sustainable energy for all" of the Secretary General of the United Nations whose objective is to mobilize all major donors and the private sector on sustainable energy projects reconciling development and energy transition in 70 countries (in Africa , Asia and Latin America).

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