2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in the context of "Climate policies"

Play Trivia Questions online!

or

Skip to study material about 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in the context of "Climate policies"




⭐ Core Definition: 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 11th session of the Meeting of the Parties (CMP) to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol.

The conference negotiated the Paris Agreement, a global agreement on the reduction of climate change, the text of which represented a consensus of the representatives of the 196 attending parties. The agreement was due to enter into force when joined by at least 55 countries which together represented at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, a target reached on 4 November 2016. On 22 April 2016 (Earth Day), 174 countries signed the agreement in New York, and began adopting it within their own legal systems (through ratification, acceptance, approval, or accession).

↓ Menu

👉 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in the context of Climate policies

The politics of climate change results from different perspectives on how to respond to climate change. Global warming is driven largely by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, certain industries like cement and steel production, and land use for agriculture and forestry. Since the Industrial Revolution, fossil fuels have provided the main source of energy for economic and technological development. The centrality of fossil fuels and other carbon-intensive industries has resulted in much resistance to climate policy, despite widespread scientific consensus that such policy is necessary.

Climate change first emerged as a political issue in the 1970s. Efforts to mitigate climate change have been prominent on the international political agenda since the 1990s, and are also increasingly addressed at national and local level. Climate change is a complex global problem. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions contribute to global warming across the world, regardless of where the emissions originate. Yet the impact of global warming varies widely depending on how vulnerable a location or economy is to its effects. Global warming is on the whole having negative impact, which is predicted to worsen as heating increases. Ability to benefit from both fossil fuels and renewable energy vary substantially from nation to nation.

↓ Explore More Topics
In this Dossier

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in the context of Paris Agreement

The Paris Agreement (also called the Paris Accords or Paris Climate Accords) is an international treaty on climate change that was signed in 2016. The treaty covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. The Paris Agreement was negotiated by 196 parties at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris, France. As of February 2023, 195 members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are parties to the agreement. Of the three UNFCCC member states which have not ratified the agreement, the only major emitter is Iran. The United States, the second largest emitter, withdrew from the agreement in 2020, rejoined in 2021, and announced its withdrawal again in 2025.

The Paris Agreement has a long-term temperature goal which is to keep the rise in global surface temperature to well below 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels. The treaty also states that preferably the limit of the increase should only be 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). These limits are defined as averages of the global temperature as measured over many years.

↑ Return to Menu

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in the context of SuRe

SuRe (The Standard for Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure) is a global voluntary standard which integrates key criteria of sustainability and resilience into infrastructure development and upgrade. It has been developed by the Swiss Global Infrastructure Basel Foundation and the French bank Natixis.

The aim of the standard is twofold: it not only guides project owners to develop infrastructure projects that perform highly with regard to sustainability and resilience aspects — taking into account social, environmental and governance criteria and best practices; it also serves as a tool to communicate the sustainability and resilience benefits to potential investors, thus channelling more financial flows into infrastructure development and boosting sustainable socioeconomic development globally.The Standard was launched at 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP21).

↑ Return to Menu

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in the context of Wodaabe

The Wodaabe (Fula: Woɗaaɓe, وٛطَاٻ‎ٜ, 𞤏𞤮𞤯𞤢𞥄𞤩𞤫) is a name that is used to designate a subgroup of the Fula ethnic group who are traditionally nomadic and found primarily in Niger and Chad. All Wodaabe people should not be mistaken as Mbororo as these are two separate subgroups of the Fulani people. It is translated into English as "Cattle Fulani", and meaning "those who dwell in cattle camps". The Wodaabe culture is one of the 186 cultures of the standard cross-cultural sample used by anthropologists to compare cultural traits. A Wodaabe woman, Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, was also chosen to represent civil society of the world on the signing of Paris Protocol on 22 April 2016.

↑ Return to Menu

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in the context of IPCC Fifth Assessment Report

The Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the fifth in a series of such reports and was completed in 2014. As had been the case in the past, the outline of the AR5 was developed through a scoping process which involved climate change experts from all relevant disciplines and users of IPCC reports, in particular representatives from governments. Governments and organizations involved in the Fourth Report were asked to submit comments and observations in writing with the submissions analysed by the panel. Projections in AR5 are based on "Representative Concentration Pathways" (RCPs). The RCPs are consistent with a wide range of possible changes in future anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Projected changes in global mean surface temperature and sea level are given in the main RCP article.

The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report followed the same general format as the Fourth Assessment Report, with three Working Group reports and a Synthesis report. The report was delivered in stages, starting with the report from Working Group I in September 2013. It reported on the physical science basis, based on 9,200 peer-reviewed studies. The Synthesis Report was released on 2 November 2014, in time to pave the way for negotiations on reducing carbon emissions at the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris during late 2015.

↑ Return to Menu