France regrets "lack of ambition" at climate summit [fr]

Paris, 16 December 2019

France – which, throughout COP25, took a demanding and proactive position commensurate with the challenges – highlights the progress made at COP25. This will contribute to the Paris Agreement’s implementation and to stronger action by countries.

However, given the climate emergency and public expectations, France regrets that governments did not go far enough in their commitments. Throughout the negotiations, France played an active role in calling for ambition and accepting no backsliding on our commitments, in order to mobilize all the parties again in the run-up to 2020, which is set to be essential. (…)

What has happened for the Paris Agreement since COP21 in 2015?

Following its adoption in December 2015 (COP21) and accelerated entry into force in November 2016 (COP22), the United Nations countries have been meeting to establish precise rules for its implementation. These were virtually all finalized at COP24 in Katowice, Poland, in December 2018.

The aim of COP25 in Madrid was to agree on a final, quite complex rule in the agreement concerning greenhouse gas emissions reduction trading schemes.

It also provided an opportunity to take stock of national and international efforts to combat climate change.

If we want to achieve the main goal of the Paris Agreement, which is to keep the global temperature rise well below 2ºC by the end of the century, we must do more and faster. Current efforts, although positive, are grossly inadequate to alleviate the climate crisis, because even in the event of all countries fully implementing all the pledges announced in 2015 (Nationally Determined Contributions), this collective effort would put the planet on a global warming trajectory of more than 3ºC by the end of the century.

At the forthcoming COP26 in Glasgow in November 2020, every country will have to increase its climate ambitions, and we will also have to ensure that the Paris Agreement is actually implemented, by translating each country’s pledges into ambitious public climate policies conducted through national action plans./.

Source: https://uk.ambafrance.org./France-regrets-lack-of-ambition-at-climate-summit