Iran’s Environment Chief in Paris in Preparation for COP21
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Head of Iran’s Environmental Protection Organization (IEPO) Masoumeh Ebtekar left for the French capital of Paris on Monday to attend a ministerial meeting in preparation for the upcoming COP21, also known as the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.
Ebtekar, also a vice president, has made the trip to Paris at the invitation of French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is the president of the COP21.
Fabius has organized a series of informal ministerial consultations to prepare for the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, which will be held on December 7 and 8.
The ongoing consultation meeting has brought together 60 delegations from around the world, 40 of whom have taken part at the level of ministers.
The Iranian official is going to hold meetings with a number of attendees on the sidelines of the gathering.
The COP21 will, for the first time in over 20 years of UN negotiations, aim to achieve a legally binding and universal agreement on climate, with the aim of keeping global warming below 2°C.
The international response to climate change began at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where the ‘Rio Convention’ included the adoption of the UN Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
This convention set out a framework for action aimed at stabilizing atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (GHGs) to avoid “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”
The UNFCCC, which took effect on March 21, 1994, now has a near-universal membership of 195 parties.
The main objective of the annual Conference of Parties (COP) is to review the Convention’s implementation.
The first COP took place in Berlin in 1995 and significant meetings since then have included COP3 where the Kyoto Protocol was adopted, COP11 where the Montreal Action Plan was devised, COP15 in Copenhagen where an agreement to success Kyoto Protocol was unfortunately not realized, and the COP17 in Durban, where the Green Climate Fund was created.
