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4 January 20164 minute read

The outcome from Paris

At the end of November, delegates from 195 countries, and the EU, met at Le Bourget Airport outside Paris, for the 21st Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC Treaty, and the 11th Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.

On 12 December, the negotiations, which had run oninto the weekend, concluded with an agreement.For a detailed summary of that Agreement, preparedby lawyers in our San Francisco, Vienna and Brisbane offices who were closelyinvolved in monitoring negotiations at the COPMOP,see our recent client alert. The Agreement, whichwill be legally binding in international law once signedand ratified by at least 55 countries that account forat least 55% of global greenhouse gas emissions,contains an ambitious goal.

It commits the parties to keeping long-term globalwarming "well below 2oC above pre-industrial levelsand pursue efforts to limit the temperature increaseto 1.5oC above pre-industrial levels". 

Those targets are ambitious, and many doubt whetherthey are realistic, given current and likely future emissions.However they certainly send a strong political signal thatso many countries are prepared to work towards a lowcarbon economy. 

Agreement on the targets was reached in part becausewhile the framework Agreement will be legally binding,the commitments set out in the Intended NationallyDetermined Contributions (INDCs), on which themeeting of those targets will largely depend, will not be.The distinction was crucial in obtaining the agreement ofthe US Government. President Obama is strongly infavour of action on climate change, but faces strongopposition in Congress, and could not risk agreeing to atreaty that would require ratification by the Senate. 

188 countries have already signed up to INDCs.On at least one estimate, the commitments in thoseINDCs currently fall some way short of meetingeven the 2oC target. However it is hoped that thereview process provided for in the Agreement, andinternational group pressure, will lead to gradualraising of 'ambition' as regards the INDCs, so thatthe targets can be met. 

The COPMOP can be said to have achieved its goal,to produce an agreement which will be legallybinding and take effect by 2020 when currentcommitments under the Kyoto Protocol expire.Indeed the accompanying decision goes further interms of making significant provision for enhancedaction prior to 2020. 

COP 21 provided a happy contrast with the 2009COPMOP in Copenhagen which sought - but failed - to meet a similar goal. 

There were significant tensions at the summit butsome time in advance there had been a quietconfidence that agreement would be achieved. Why the contrast? It is clear that the lessons of 2009 COPMOP hadbeen learned. 

An important development in advance of the COPMOPwas Chinese American Co-operation, discussed in thefirst article of this issue. 

That was supplemented by an accord betweenChina and France in which China agreed to supportfive-yearly reviews of the INDCs aimed in particularat securing that developing countries "progressivelyorient themselves towards quantifiable reductions orlimitations in emissions". 

One argument which had previously hamperednegotiations is that developed countries should bear all ofthe cost and burden because their historic emissionscaused the problem in the first place. That argument isbeing undermined by the increasing wealth of manydeveloping countries and their rapidly increasing share ofglobal emissions. It is China’s increasing wealth, despitethe recent slowdown, and awareness of the problemscaused by rapid industrialisation, which has effected arevolution in China’s own approach to the environment.Astonishingly this includes the recent introduction of anew role for NGOs in the enforcement of environmentalcompliance in that country, and specialist environmentalsections in the courts. 

It is also evident that France, whose foreign minister,Laurent Fabius, travelled extensively to China in the18 months preceding the COPMOP and who himselfpresided at Le Bourget, set considerable store by thesuccess of the COPMOP. 

France was clearly determined to avoid the tacticalerrors of the 'top-down' approach adopted by theDanish presidency and other EU delegations atCopenhagen. Emphasis was placed instead on a 'bottom up' approach in which agreement would besought on the basis of what different states hadindicated they would be prepared to agree to. 

France also made special arrangements for a 'civil society village' for NGOs at Le Bourget, incontrast to the treatment they received at the 2009COPMOP when they were turned out into the coldstreets of Copenhagen in winter. 

Lastly, the COPMOP can be said to have obtained thesupport of both God and Mammon. It obtained theblessing of the Pope, whose encyclical Laudato si’ seemsat least in part to have been issued to encourageprogress at the COPMOP. Furthermore CEOs from78 global companies signed an open letter in advance ofthe summit, calling on governments to take bold action.The signatories included Sir Nigel Knowles, GlobalCo-Chairman of DLA Piper. Read the open letter here

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