United Nations’ International Climate Change Negotiations 2015 COP 21/CMP 11

leafLinklaters will be reporting from the United Nations’ international climate change negotiations COP 21/CMP 11 which are taking place this year in Le Bourget, France, from 30 November to 11 December.

Our team will be live-tweeting developments from the conference via our Twitter feed here, and providing more in-depth analysis as events unfold via our blog.

The aim of COP 21 is to reach a new global agreement on climate change which puts in place an ambitious collective pathway towards a resilient, low carbon world economy.  In the lead up to COP 21, more than 160 countries (including EU Member States) covering at least 90% of global emissions have submitted pledges to curb emissions domestically (known as the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions or INDCs).  The pledges in the INDCS are not sufficient to keep the world from 2 degrees of warming, widely acknowledged as the target required to prevent dangerous climate change.   The form of the Paris agreement or its legal status in the broader scheme may therefore be less significant than the mechanisms agreed to increase ambition beyond Paris.

We will be tracking the key issues and market-related developments at what is expected to be a seminal conference including:

  • Possible impacts of national policy commitments on GHG reductions (INDCs) on investment opportunities;
  • The role of markets and carbon pricing in any proposed financial mechanism;
  • Following the recent operationalisation of the Green Climate Fund, the proposals for incentivising and de-risking private sector investment in the projects supported by the fund; 
  • Discussions on how public finance can be used to leverage private investments; and
  • The use of market-based frameworks for funding the protection and restoration of forests and natural ecosystems.