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by Annebel ten Broeke

Paris is currently engaged in important debates about climate change and the world’s CO2 emission. This debate is called COP21 and involves all the members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC is a convention about the “ Earth Summit “, a convention that began in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. Its aims were to decrease the CO2 emission and decrease the environmental damage caused by human actions.  The climate debate began on the 15th of November 2015 and will last up until the 11th of December 2015. In advance of the debate, all parties involved bring forth ideas that fulfil the goal of the convention. At this stage, the plans did not have to be concrete. During the debate those plans were discussed and elaborated. All those plans need to realize a new climate protocol by 2020. However, how effective are those debates? And if the goals are achievable, is the subject widely open for debate? Several critics have little trust in this convention while others are great proponents. 

Proponents of the convention conclude that the climate convention is an enormous step forward for the entire world. The conference provides a clear intention to fight the climate change and provides guidelines for those parties involved. It wants to ensure that the temperature increase stays below 2 degrees relative to today’s average temperature. They believe that the strong CO2 reduction plans may drive growth for companies that are involved in sustainable solutions. Thus, not only environmental benefits will be achieved by the reduction of CO2, it will also create opportunities for upcoming technology in sustainability. It will also indirectly reduce human right problems. Natural catastrophes are by some thought to be caused by climate change and negatively affect a lot of people, especially in third world countries. Those climate changes are primarily caused by second world countries and thus the poorer consequently suffer from others citizen’s actions. The COP21 will ensure an increase in safety for those people and will thereby prevent the violation of basic human rights. Thus the proponents believe that the convention will create a greener environment, evolve technology and increase world safety. 

However, critics believe that the convention is not effective and the goals are unreasonable. The greatest criticism is that they consider the convention not to be universal. The convention is limited to the countries that are members of the UNFCCC and since the start of the convention only a few countries have been added to this convention. They expect that if the convention were more universal it would also be more effective. This could be achieved by a more frequent update of the plans to reach the convention goals. The critics also believe that the tremendous complication of all conventions is a big problem for this specific convention. Conventions are solely based on trust and are very difficult to implement in society. As the outcomes of the convention cannot be effectively enforced, there is no legitimate way to monitor or control actions of all participating nations. They believe a mechanism should be created to ensure the transparency of the convention and measure the compliance of all parties involved. This will create a binding statue and thus will actually have an effect. Some critics also believe that the goals of the convention are unreasonable and will therefore cause a decrease in the economic growth because of several restrictions. The morale and effectiveness of the convention will thereby also decrease. For this reason, most critics believe that the debates should not completely be stopped, but should be made more effective and reasonable. 

To conclude, the COP21 is still an ongoing discussion. There are lots of different opinions about the effectiveness of the convention and the application of the plans conjured. Some believe that it will bring great advantages while others doubt if it will actually achieve anything other than economic turmoil. Nevertheless, it is good that climate change is being discussed and that the world wants to get rid of this problem.