New COP21 Climate Change Draft Agreement

On Saturday, December 12th, it was just recently reported that there may be a draft agreement out of the COP21 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. According to reports, “After years of buildup and almost a month of negotiations, world leaders reached a deal Saturday on controlling climate change that the French Foreign Minster said was “fair … and legally binding.”

The question now becomes whether the state leaders will agree to the proposal, which they are expected to receive shortly.

It is important to note that the goal of the COP21 is to get all of the countries at the conference to agree to the draft agreement; there is an attempt at working through consensus. In addition, even if the countries that are at the conference agree, the document still needs to be ratified by the governments within each country, a difficult task given the various levels of power, and different influences within governments.

Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see what points were included, and what points may have been left out. Speaking on the draft document, Laurent Fabius, the French Foreign Minister, was quoted as saying that “”Obviously, nobody will get 100% of what they want.” He also said that that he hoped that the countries would remember the statements that were made at the beginning of the conference. This is important, as we must remember the harmful effects that might take place in upcoming decades if a deal is not reached.