'No Copenhagen anymore' at Paris meet

With the slogan of “No Copenhagen anymore”, the upcoming Paris Climate Conference hopes to achieve a major breakthrough in persuading the participating nations to agree to a durable legally binding and universal agreement on climate change with the aim of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. Paris will host the Conference of Parties (CoP 21) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in December.

The benchmark of the proposed conference is to prevent at all costs the disaster Copenhagen climate conference in 2012.The conference hopes to have all-time high number of participants of approx 40,000. For the first time, the event will see participation of around 20,000 civil societies, NGOs and other stakeholders.

laurence Tubiana, Special Representative for the 2015 Paris Climate Conference and Ambassador for Climate Change, said, “We don’t want an agreement for the sake of an agreement. It is to deliver something but of course we have to make sure all interests are well captured even if all have to make compromises. We want a peaceful COP, not a crisis COP.” 

Yet another objective of the proposed conference is to work out a clear pathway for the transfer of $100 billion Green Climate Fund by the developed countries by 2020 for the implementation of various mechanisms and technology transfer to the developing countries to combat climate change.“We could think further on what could be the financial mechanism to really facilitate this transition to low carbon economy. In most countries the finance of this transition to a low carbon economy and to adaptation is more costly than financing of high carbon,” Tubiana added. 

She lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” programme on how to bring investment to green India along with the technologies for development. The most contentious issues of the proposed conference would be Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) submitted by the member States and whether or not they will be able to keep up with the commitments of the target of 2 degrees Celsius by century end. The INDC’s contain actions and timelines put forth by the respective nations to fight climate change.  

On whether there is any possibility of a review of INDCs happening before or immediately after the COP, Tubiana replied, “We have received all signals that they are not prepared to reopen that discussion at least formally. China and many other countries have made it clear.”Forty out of 196 member States have already submitted their INDCs that account for nearly 35 per cent of the total global emissions. India will submit its INDC by September. 

While different member countries are gearing up for the proposed negotiations on the contentious climate issues. Tubiana said, “As a presidency our role will be of course to be an honest broker, to keep parties aware of what is demanded.” However, in its attempts to bring the participating countries closer on the negotiating table, CoP 21 would be preceded by a number of informal meetings at ministerial level, beginning this month. The French officials further stressed that it is important that negotiations begin early and not left at the last minute. 

“In CoP there is less than 10 days of negotiations. It is important that the negotiating process is transparent with everyone on board rather than hurried closed door negotiations,” an official said.