People in 2500 cities around the world staged events calling for a deal on climate change as world leaders began to arrive in Paris for the COP21 climate talks which are viewed as critical in terms of international efforts to ensure climate stability. The meeting comes shortly after the UK Committee on Climate Change published its advice to the Government on the fifth carbon budget (2028-32) calling for a commitment to UK emissions reduction of 57% by that time.
So far, 178 countries have submitted their emissions reductions pledges (covering over 90% of global emissions) and world leaders from more than 190 countries are meeting to sign an international agreement on how to tackle climate change. 138 heads of state and 25,000 official delegates are expected to attend the talks in Paris which will run for the first two weeks of December.
The Conference of the Parties (COP), made up of all 'States Parties', is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention’s supreme decision-making body. It meets every year in a global session where decisions are made to meet goals for combating climate change. Decisions can only be made unanimously by the States Parties or by consensus.
The objective of the 2015 COP is to achieve - for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations - a binding and universal agreement on climate from all the nations of the world.
Previous agreements in Kyoto were never ratified by the US and excluded China and other big emitters, while the treaty arising from Copenhagen in 2009 was never legally-binding.
The EU has already stated that it will cut its emissions by 40% compared with 1990 levels, by 2030. The US will cut its emissions by 28% compared with 2005 levels, by 2025 and China has said that its emissions will peak by 2030.
The pledges so far made, however, will still not be sufficient to limit global warming to 2°C, according to analysis published in August by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change.
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCC is optimistic that a deal can be achieved in Paris. She said: “We are going to be on a journey, and there are going to be checkpoints along that journey with review cycles to quantify if we’re getting closer. Paris is not going to deliver two degrees on the 11th of December, but I certainly expect it to deliver the path toward 2 degrees.”
The Committee on Climate Change, which advises the Government on the lowest-cost path towards its legal requirement to cut UK emissions by at least 80% in 2050 on 1990 levels say the Government should commit to an emissions reduction of 57% by 2028-2032.
As an element of that committment, the CCC says that by the 2030s, the majority of new cars and vans bought in the UK should be fully or partially electric, "removing a significant proportion of emissions from transport, improving UK air quality and potentially boosting UK manufacturing".
The fifth carbon budget marks the half-way point from the first carbon budget period (2008-2012) to 2050.
The CCC says that the UK has made good progress to date. Emissions have been cut 36% compared with 1990 levels and, if current policies are effective, will be down by 43-46% in 2020.
However, the Committee says, to keep within the emissions limits set by the fourth and fifth carbon budgets, and to stay on track to 2050, a number of new policies and clear long-term signals to investors are urgently required.