And its over!! Paris Agreement Adopted
Cheers and Tears all round
Post COP21 Analysis: Paris Agreement is now legal
what just happened?
what does it all mean?
It will take time to process but we will provide analysis Sunday.
fossil fuel
Paris Climate Talks – Reactions to Saturday’s Final Agreement
Breaking: Final Plenary to Vote on New Climate Agreement Delayed to 17:30 CET Saturday
Now that parties have had a chance to review the final text points of disagreement remain. Some changes will likely be made in the final plenary this evening. However these usually need to be agreed on beforehand in the informal sessions that are happening right now.
Tension mounts while it is clear nearly everyone senses the end of COP21 is very near.
Wide Range of Reactions to the new final text:
The Paris agreement is a historic turning point for the whole world. One of the most remarkable outcomes of the agreement is that its objective is to “pursue efforts to limit” global warming to 1.5C above preindustrial, while holding warming “well below 2C.
While the agreement is itself historic, the challenges ahead in achieving it will dominate the 21st-century. The agreement has been made at a time when national greenhouse gas emission reduction contributions for 2025 and 2030 together far exceed the levels needed to hold global warming well below 2C, let alone limit to 1.5C.”
Bill Hare, CEO of Climate Analytics
“If agreed and implemented, this means bringing down greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero within a few decades.
John Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
There’s much in the text that has been diluted and polluted by the people who despoil our planet, but it contains a new imperative to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees. That single number, and the new goal of net zero emissions by the second half of this century, will cause consternation in the boardrooms of coal companies and the palaces of oil-exporting states.”
— Kumi Naidoo, International Director, Greenpeace
Rich countries have moved the goal posts so far that we are left with a sham of a deal in Paris. Through piecemeal pledges and bullying tactics, rich countries have pushed through a very bad deal
Sara Shaw, Friends of the Earth International climate justice and energy coordinator.
t’s a sad day for vulnerable people everywhere. An exclusion clause that robs the poor of their right to compensation.
Azeb Girmai, LDC Watch International
If agreed and implemented, this means bringing down greenhouse-gas emissions to net zero within a few decades. … CO2 emissions have to peak well before 2030…
John Schellnhuber, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
“If agreed, this deal will represent a turning point in history, paving the way for the shift to 100% clean energy that the world wants and the planet needs. By marching in the streets, calling leaders and signing petitions, people everywhere created this moment, and now people everywhere will deliver on it to secure the future of humanity.
Emma Ruby-Sachs, Acting Executive Director, Avaaz
For the first time in history, the whole world has made a public commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deal with the impacts of climate change
Mohamed Adow, Senior Climate Advisor, Christian Aid
Paris Climate Talks – Late Breaking Update Friday
Final Paris Agreement to be released Sat Dec 12 at 1030 am CET
Countries will then spend Saturday reviewing, commenting and, if all goes well, voting on the new climate agreement by end of day.
It is certainly possible – some say likely – that contentious revisions will be requested by a few countries and that will delay a final vote until Sunday.
Once accepted by all (or nearly all) — it is a consensus process which often leads to last-minute drama, sometimes forcing the COP President to bend the rules — the Paris Agreement will be the climate action plan for all nations.
Paris Climate Talks – Human and Indigenous Rights Removed
“How can our voices be silenced here?” Jannie Staffansson – a Sami woman from Northern Europe
We are the persons who are dying. My friends, my family are the ones who go through water, they are the ones killed in avalanches. How can the purpose of this negotiation not be people? How can our voices be silenced here?
- Jannie Staffansson – a Sami woman from Northern Europe
Two environmental activists are killed every week according to Global Witness, and disproportionate number are Indigenous people
- Kumi Nadioo, Greenpeace International
Why is this important?
Article 2 is about the purpose of the agreement which surely is to protect people and the climate said María José Veramendi Villa, Asociacion Interamericana Para La Defensa Del Ambiente (AIDA) of Perú.
“Indigenous peoples are amongst the most impacted by climate change,” she said in a press conference today.
Article 2 also sets out how the agreement is to be implemented. This is crucial because some purported climate actions already in place such as biofuel plantations and carbon sequestration projects have already violated the rights of local people. People have been removed from their ancestral lands and protesters have been killed in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Norway, the European Union, the US and others oppose the inclusion for reasons that are completely unclear said Veramendi.
“It doesn’t change obligations that are already in the UN Declaration on Human Rights,” she said.
Countries like the US are only acting to protect the interests of a few powerful corporations in these negotiations, said Greenpeace’s Nadioo.
That’s why there is a global movement, a dynamic movement for real climate action that they cannot stop, he said.
Paris Climate Talks – What Does “Emissions Neutrality” Mean?
What Does “Emissions Neutrality” Really Mean?
Explainer:
Negotiators have deleted specific emission reduction targets for the long-term goal i.e. +2050. Thursday night in Paris a new proposal surfaced for “greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions neutrality in the second half of the century, on the basis of equity and guided by science in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication”.
This should mean zero GHG emissions from all sectors by first reducing emissions to near zero and then using negative emissions (taking CO2 etc out of the atmosphere) to achieve net zero.
Defining it as GHG neutrality vs carbon neutrality is very important from climate science perspective. In 2012, 23% of emissions were non-CO2 greenhouse gases.
Bottom line:
There is no way to get to 1.5C or 2.0C without GHG neutrality before 2100. What’s missing in the agreement is a specific time table – “second half of the century” is pretty vague. Expect this to change at some future COP (yes there will be many more) when the science catches up with figuring out what is needed to achieve it.
Paris Climate Talks – Late Breaking Update
Final Paris Agreement to be Ready Saturday AM
At 5:40 local time Friday #COP21 President Laurent Fabius announces his last text will be ready Saturday morning, for final decision around noon.
Paris Climate Talks – New Text Now, Final On Track for Friday
“I think I will be able to present final text tomorrow,” he said.
Paris Climate Talks – Science Behind Need for 1.5C
Humans have enjoyed 10,000 years of climate stability, in which the global average temperature varied less than one degree C – even during the Little Ice Age.
This heating will be wildly uneven with the Arctic warming 2-3 times faster. In 1.5C world much of the far north will be 4.0C. Canada is already 1.6 to 1.8 C warmer today.
Large parts of Africa including the African Sahel, including the Horn of Africa, are very vulnerable to any increase in temperatures. Even with 1.5C large portions of the Arctic and Antarctic will continue to melt raising sea levels, albeit at a slower rate threatening the very existence of some small islands states.
Delay in making the shift to non-fossil fuel energy sources will be very costly. Waiting until 2020 to curb global emissions will cost twice as much compared with peaking emissions by 2015 various analysis have shown.
There are enormous benefits if global emissions decline before 2020. Failure to do so will mean we will need to use more nuclear, massive amounts of bioenergy, large-scale carbon capture and storage
- Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Switzerland’s Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science
Paris Climate Talks – Update & Key Disputes
Late Wednesday night for over 3 hours dozens of countries’ stated the draft Paris Agreement is a great start but… x, y and z need fixing.
And so informal groups are meeting overnight to find compromises on a number of key issues. In the morning a new revised draft Paris Agreement will be released. There will still be bracketed issue.
Expect negotiations to go into the weekend.
Key Issues in Dispute
* Developing countries want a strong and separate article for the Warsaw International Mechanism for loss and damage associated with climate change impacts
* Finance – who’s going to pay and by when. More $$ from rich nations will be needed
* Differentiation – who has to do what
* Ambition – what’s the long-term temperature goal
* Response measures -what to do when measures to address climate change hurt fossil fuel-dependent economies ie Saudi Arabia
- Inter Press Service News Agency (International)
- DeSmog Blog (Seattle)
- Philippine EnviroNews (Philippines)
- Earth Journalism (International)
- Watson (Switzerland)
- Skeptical Science (International)
Paris Climate Talks: Illegal March Sat – Start of “Red Line” Global Protests
Breaking: Climate March Planned for Paris this Saturday, at noon <
According to 350.org “thousands of people will gather in the streets of Paris carrying red flowers to honour past and future victims of climate change”.
Marches are illegal in Paris under current security measures. Where people will gather and march is being kept a secret.Details will be posted here
Oganizers say they plan to unfurl over 100 meters of red fabric to form a giant red line down a major boulevard. The flowers will include more than 5,000 red tulips that will be laid down along the line.
This “Red Lines” action is the launch of a new wave of what some activists call “climate disobedience,” civil disobedience actions that challenge the fossil fuel industry, often at major infrastructure projects like coal mines or pipelines.
On Thursday, campaigners at COP21 will announce a major mobilization planned for May 2016 called “Break Free,” when people around the world will take on some of the worst fossil fuel projects in their region.
Protests Escalate in Paris: Beginning of “Red Lines” Protests
10 Arrested at Louvre Wednesday
Sit down protest inside COP 21 ongoing
Police remove protestors at “Solutions 21” event in Paris
Stephen Leahy, International Environmental Journalist 