The summit will be held in Paris on November 30 where more than 100 heads of state and government would turn up to ponder on the noble cause of preserving the world climate.
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That information comes from the UN Assistant Secretary-General on Climate Change, Janos Pasztor, who briefed journalists in NY on Friday.
US President Barack Obama, China’s Xi Jingping and Russian President Vladimir Putin are among the 138 leaders who will attend the climate summit in Paris starting November 30.
It is called Cop21 as it is the 21st gathering or “Conference of the Parties” to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The attacks in Paris, however, are affecting the preparations and activities planned for COP21 especially those that are outside the formal conference location at Le Bourget, he continued.
A huge march had been planned for November 29 by supporters of an agreement to reduce carbon emissions, which has now been cancelled by the French government.
Although Mr Pasztor said this is progress, he stressed that it is not enough.
An Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report also released previous year detailed how global warming worsens conditions like drought and starvation, which in turn contribute to conflict. Success may elude Paris if developed countries continue to evade their responsibility to provide adequate financial resources and transfer appropriate technologies to developing countries to enable them to enhance their own domestic efforts. During previous climate negotiations, countries agreed to outline actions they intend to take within a global agreement by March 2015, but that seems to be all the came out during these discussions: countries agreeing to do a few things, without actually signing anything.
“We have stronger convergence on the broad contours of an agreement than we ever saw ahead of the Copenhagen conference”, said veteran analyst Elliot Diringer, referring to worldwide climate talks in 2009 that ended in bitter disappointment.
The goal of the conference is to get the world to take action so that the average global temperature rise is kept below two degrees Celsius.
The United States has consistently said it will not inscribe its emissions reduction targets – 26-28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025 – in a legally-binding global treaty.
Boards reading “The planet is in our hands” and “We can not say to our children that we did not know” are pictured on the site of the UN Climate Conference scheduled for Paris at the end of the month.
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We are optimistic, he told reporters, while adding that there is still a great deal of work ahead to be done before the global community realizes a universal, meaningful agreement, taking place in the context of the2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by Member States in September.
