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Arctic Yearbook 2015
addressing each of these questions, we will provide a short overview of what the Paris Climate
Conference is expected to deliver.
What can one expect from the Paris climate conference?
The Paris climate conference is the final step in a four-years long negotiating process that was initiated
to address some of the policy gaps left by the failure of the Copenhagen conference.
The conference is expected to result in a package outcome building on four main elements that will
define the response to climate change for the years to come (Boyd et al. 2015: 7). Firstly, governments
are finalizing the drafting of a new agreement setting a new framework for climate cooperation.
Contrary to its predecessor, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, this new agreement is expected to involve
actively all countries and to address both the reduction of greenhouse gases emissions as well as issues
related to climate adaptation. Secondly, all governments are requested to provide a national
contribution highlighting the domestic policies and targets in relation to low-carbon development and
– for most countries – to climate resilience. Thirdly, the conference will offer an opportunity for
developed countries to confirm how they intend to support financially developing countries struggling
with climate impacts or intending to implement drastic cuts in their carbon emissions. Fourthly, local
governments and private entities are invited to join the momentum for climate action by offering their
own voluntary commitments to those of national governments.
By building on self-defined targets and voluntary commitments, this package approach constitutes a
shift from the previous rounds of climate negotiations and from the model that underpinned the
Kyoto Protocol. The current negotiations build from the premise that governments are not yet willing
to take sufficient action to prevent a dangerous increase of temperatures but that a new agreement
promoting transparency, financial and technological support and participation by all actors might help
to increase incrementally this collective ambition.
How has the Arctic been addressed so far by two decades of climate
negotiations?
The Paris conference will be another milestone in a process initiated in 1992 with the adoption of the
UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Since then governments have
continuously worked under the aegis of the United Nations to foster international cooperation on the
What Role for the Arctic in COP-21?