Momentum for new treaty as climate talks resume

COP21 FACEBOOK PHOTO

PARIS—The potentially historic climate change talks in Paris resume at 10 am today (5 pm in Manila), with momentum clearly behind the two-decade-long effort to reach a new, legally binding agreement limiting greenhouse gas emissions.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon opens the High-Level Segment of the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at the Le Bourget conference venue just outside this city. The segment, involving ministers from 195 countries and the European Union, will seek to build on the enthusiasm created by last Saturday’s surprising and substantial breakthrough.

The breakthrough means ministers will be working with a much-reduced text, the so-called Draft Paris Outcome, which consists of a 21-page draft agreement and a 22-page draft decision to implement the agreement. At the same stage of the failed Copenhagen talks in 2009, the negotiating text was some 150 pages.

On Sunday, former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, the president of COP21, announced the creation of a team of 14 minister-level “facilitators” from different countries to help him manage the final stages of negotiations. The facilitators include Izabella Texeira, the environment minister of Brazil, Catherine McKenna of Canada, and Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber of the United Arab Emirates.