Draft climate agreement presented to governments

The United Nations (UN) working group tasked with negotiating a new universal climate change agreement has issued the first comprehensive draft of the agreement in the lead-up to the forthcoming COP 21 climate change conference.

The Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) meeting - COP 21 - is to be held in Paris in December 2015, with the aim of delivering a new universal climate change agreement leading to a low-carbon, sustainable future that keeps a global temperature rise under 2 degrees Celsius.

The draft agreement is officially a "non-paper". It contains the basis for negotiation of the draft Paris climate package, a draft of the decision that will operationalize the agreement from 2020 and a draft decision on pre-2020 ambition. It has been prepared by the co-chairs of the UNFCC Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP), and will be used to provide a "concise basis for negotiations" at the ADP's next negotiating session which is to be held in Bonn, Germany, later this month.

The objective of the ADP's Bonn session is to "intensify the pace of text-based negotiation among Parties with a view to preparing the draft Paris climate package for presentation at the opening of COP 21".

So far, 146 countries have submitted their intended national climate action plans to the UN ahead of the Paris conference.

Researched and written
by World Nuclear News