News Analysis: Paris Climate Change Conference to be different from Copenhagen

Paris will not be Copenhagen both because the process leading up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference there at the end of this year is well ahead of schedule but also because countries involved are more committed and are in different political, economic, financial and technological positions, UN climate change chief Christiana Figueres said during a recent visit to Australia.

Figueres, Executive Secretary of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), highlighted at a media briefing on Thursday three reasons that would hopefully make Paris a more fruitful conference than Copenhagen.

First, the cost of technology has come down remarkably since 2008. The cost of solar energy has been reduced by 80 percent since 2008 and an increase of 40 percent in efficiency. And the storage capacity has also been increased.

"It is much more technically viable to move toward a healthier electricity grid and energy mix," Figueres said.

Second, the policy commitment made by governments has been impressive.

In the lead up to Copenhagen, there were no more than 40 regulations or legislations around the world relating to climate change or renewable energy. By next month, the UN will take an overview of up to 800 regulations and legislations around the world.

"All countries are moving in to regulatory frameworks that point toward renewable energies, toward de-carbonization, toward a healthier mix in their energy matrix and certainly much more efficiency."

Third, the finance sector has moved forward.

"You didn't have as much investment in renewable energies before Copenhagen as you do now," said Figueres, "Last year, we had 271 billion U.S. dollars invested in renewable energy, more than any other year before. There was more installations of renewable energy capacity than there was new installations in fossil fuel capacity. So already show where the growth is coming from. We had at the end of last year 35 billion dollars in green bond, moving up to 100 billion this year. From the financial community, much more confidence that the investment into clean technologies is viable and profitable."

She also said a couple of things are pretty clear before the Paris meeting.

First, the structure and the logic of the agreement is already very apparent. It is very well structured and the logic is already embedded there.

In addition, governments are migrating towards the concept of a core agreement which is going to have a long shelf life and will be the guiding route toward the target of keeping the earth from exceeding the below 2 degree maximum temperature rise. They would be happy to take out the instruction manual which contains much technical, operational and procedural details from the core agreement.

Governments have also embarked on political treatment of the agreement apart from the mechanical treatment.

"That is why it is absolutely critical that there be high-level political guidance on this that goes all the way from the head of states, all the way down to negotiators," Figueres said.

Figueres said that both the international and the national processes leading to the Paris conference in December are well on track.

In the international process, 194 federal governments meet on regular basis to negotiate their response to climate change and on particular milestones along that road.

In addition to the commitment by all the governments to the largest milestone, which is the Paris Agreement, they are also on track in the markers that governments have given themselves as milestones.

While reaching a negotiating text six months before Paris has been the initial target, government have been getting each of the milestones ahead of time and managed to put the negotiating text on the table at the beginning of this year, well ahead of schedule.

"That is remarkably different from where we were in the lead up to Copenhagen in 2009. We did not have an official negotiating text on the table. We had 300 pages of compilation of text but certainly not negotiating text," Figueres said.

As per the national progress, UNFCCC Secretariat is getting submissions from governments in the form of so-called Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), which is actually their national carbon management plan.

The Secretariat will then have an overview of all those national carbon management plans and produce a synthesized report that will be looking at the aggregate effect of all of those together before October 1, in time to be considered by all the governments for the Paris meeting.

However, Figueres warned that Paris should not be expected to be a Eureka Moment to solve climate change miraculously. Rather, it is a process.

"What Paris will deliver is a two-fold effort at staying under 2 degrees. One is the first generation of these carbon management plans that are submitted nationally and are being quantified at a national basis. And we have the responsibility to do the aggregate of all the national submissions," she said.

"Subsequently, there will be a 2nd, 3rd, 4th generations... There will be several generations, several allotments of emission reduction targets and commitments that all countries will be making. Paris will not only be the recipient of those initial submissions, it will also chart a longer-term pathway to stay under the 2 degrees. That is a multi-decadal effort that needs to be attained by countries as they increase their technological, financial, economic and certainly political ability to be able to make increasing ambitiously contributions towards that." Endi