Climate change conferences can be bewildering. Here’s a recap of how we got here, what to look out for at COP24 and what comes next.
Developing countries can expect much better outcomes from the Paris climate change talks compared with Copenhagen six years ago.
EPA/Guillaume Horcajuelo
African countries stand a good chance at COP21 of getting their ideas across. There will also be a better opportunity for these countries to access climate finance.
Connie Hedegaard says political leaders could stop coming to climate summits unless Paris delivers significant progress.
Christopher Wright
Connie Hedegaard, who chaired the 2009 Copenhagen climate summit, says the stakes are high for this year’s crunch talks in Paris, and that without a solid result, the process could begin to fragment.
Can negotiators in Paris get a hit?
Peter Miller/flickr
The UN climate talks in Bonn last week left many key issues unresolved, creating big challenges for forging a global deal in Paris later this year that would avert the worst effects of climate change.
Bonn in June: just a few steps away from the big show in Paris later this year.
unfccc/flickr
It’s pledge season: countries are beginning to submit carbon reduction commitments for the Paris climate talks later this year. What’s the US doing and can it meet its targets?
Australia’s foreign minister Julie Bishop at the last year’s Lima climate talks, where nations agreed new transparency rules over climate targets.
DFAT
Countries that drag their feet on climate action have fewer places to hide these days. Rules brought in at the 2014 Lima talks require them not just to set targets, but to publicly justify them too.
UN lead climate negotiator Christiana Figueres (second from left) has been hailed as having the dynamism needed to drive the Paris talks.
EPA/AAP
The much-hyped 2009 Copenhagen climate summit yielded only a flimsy accord. But, as Nick Rowley writes in part 2 of his three-part essay on the 2015 Paris climate talks, there are several reasons why this year won’t see another flop.
Hopes for a singular breakthrough at the 2009 Copenhagen climate talks were dashed, but that doesn’t mean the negotiating process isn’t making quiet progress.
EPA/Henning Bagger/AAP
Hopes are high that a global climate deal can be reached in Paris this year. In part 1 of a three-part essay on the prospects for such a deal, Nick Rowley sets out three myths about the UN talks that need to be dumped before we go forward.