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5 things you didn’t know about the Paris Climate Deal

source:unfccc
Written by RelevantStuff

There’s lots of talk about a climate deal about to take place in Paris from 30 November. Representatives of nearly all countries (around 200) are expected to attend this conference. But what exactly is this conference about, and what makes it so special?

(1) The climate deal is a part of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which will take place in Le Bourget, in Paris, the capital city of France.

(2) The conference is alternately named as COP 21, as well as CMP 11. This is because it is the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), as well as the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol-an international treaty which emphasized on implementing steps to fight global warming and greenhouse emissions.

(3) The main aim of this treaty is to enforce legal bindings to reduce greenhouse emissions on a global scale. Since the spread of industrialisation, the overall global temperature has increased by 2 degree Celsius, which is inflicting lot of damage to ecosystems around the world.

(4) The Kyoto Protocol is of great significance ahead of this conference. The Protocol has a differentiated interpretation for different countries-it calls for the developed countries that have been responsible for increased greenhouse emissions over a long period of time. It took 16 years for the first commitment period to begin, which lasted from 2008 to 2012. But the second commitment period-the Doha Amendment-which started out in 2012, directed 37 countries, including 28 from the European Union, with legal bindings, out of which only 36 have accepted the amendment as of July 2015.

(5) Countries are divided on the legal binding that may or may not be enforced during this conference. Many countries from the European Union, including France, are advocating the enforcement of a legally applicable treaty, while the USA is of the view that even if there is an agreement, it should not be legally binding.

We will be covering the key highlights from the Paris climate deal. More stuff soon…

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