By now you have likely heard of the "big" climate meeting in Paris, France. From November 30th to December 11th, the world will be watching Le Bourget, France, the site of COP21. This is a critical meeting that could set the tone for the health of our planet for decades to come. In a previous Forbes article, I wrote about why Earth is so critical since we don't have a spare vacation planet to hop to for the weekend. Unless a policy wonk, climate scientist, climate attentive, or social media obsessed with climate, most of you likely have questions about the context of COP21 and how it fits into a broader structure. I decided to violate my self-imposed Thanksgiving break to write a "101" on the basics of COP to answer this question, "What is this Paris climate meeting anyway?"
COP stands for Conference of the Parties. France is chairing and hosting the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP21). The COP is further defined by the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) website as:
the supreme decision-making body of the Convention. All States that are Parties to the Convention are represented at the COP, at which they review the implementation of the Convention and any other legal instruments that the COP adopts and take decisions necessary to promote the effective implementation of the Convention, including institutional and administrative arrangements.........A key task for the COP is to review the national communications and emission inventories submitted by Parties. Based on this information, the COP assesses the effects of the measures taken by Parties and the progress made in achieving the ultimate objective of the Convention. The COP meets every year, unless the Parties decide otherwise. The COP meets in Bonn, the seat of the secretariat, unless a Party offers to host the session. Just as the COP Presidency rotates among the five recognized UN regions - that is, Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe and Others
Ok, so what does all of that mean?
In 1992, the Rio Earth Summit sparked the international response to climate change by adopting the United Nation's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). UNFCCC, an international environmental treaty, ramped up its work in 1994 and now has nearly 195 member parties. The primary goal was to put forth a framework for stabilizing greenhouse gases (GHGs), which the peer review literature and numerous studies continue to show as a modifier to our climate system (along with natural variability). There is a lot of chatter and opinion on this issue and there are ideological, economic and literacy based reasons for the confusion. However, that is an article for another day. Let's get back to the basics of COP.
The first COP was in Berlin in 1995. Key COP meetings since include:
- COP3, Kyoto Protocol adopted. The Kyoto Protocol, adopted in 1997 (an activated in 2005), set international binding reduction targets for GHG emissions. More responsibility was placed on developed nations. This was a major concern for nations like the United States that saw large developing nations becoming major emitters of carbon dioxide as well. Many of the challenges related to climate change policy lie in the economic implications of the "solutions" and issues of equity for countries that are not the primary emitters but are most vulnerable.
- COP7, "Marrakesh Accords." These accords established the rules of implementation were adopted. It also established the first commitment period as 2008. According to the UNFCC website: "During the first commitment period, 37 industrialized countries and the European Community committed to reduce GHG emissions to an average of five percent against 1990 levels. During the second commitment period, Parties committed to reduce GHG emissions by at least 18 percent below 1990 levels in the eight-year period from 2013 to 2020; however, the composition of Parties in the second commitment period is different from the first." (The Kyoto Protocol ended in 2012.)
- COP11, Montreal Action Plan produced.
- COP15 (Copenhagen), No agreement to extended or replace the Kyoto Protocol.
- COP17 in Durban, Green Climate Fund adopted.
A full listing of the COP and related meetings can be found here.
The goal of COP21 according to the COP21 website is:
COP21, also known as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, will, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.
Warming is already halfway to the 2 degree mark (a possible tipping point) and at this link, experts provide context on the results of that amount of warming in the lead up to Paris. So, what came out of COP20 in Lima? Many would argue "nothing". However, the Lima Call For Climate Action was a draft framework that emerged to lay out a foundation for a global climate deal.
I suppose we'll see what happens in the coming weeks, but at least I hope you understand the basics of COP.
