‘…in the spirit of correcting the record, we’ve annotated parts of a typical news story on the deal. While we chose the New York Times, we could easily have done the same for any of the major wire services or other big news organizations: the coverage was by and large as homogenous as it was inaccurate’

Source: Why Most Of What You Think You Know About The Paris Climate Deal Is Wrong: An Annotated News Story | The Leap

‘Will the deal agreed in Paris be enough to save the planet? Emissions cuts and investment are promised, but legal responsibilities are thin on the ground’

Source: Climate change deal: five reasons to be glad, five to be gloomy | Global development | The Guardian

‘…But the fact that the lowest common denominator is now so high — a willingness by 188 countries to offer plans to steadily and verifiably reduce their carbon emissions — means we still have a chance to meet what scientists say is our key challenge: to avoid the worst impacts of global warming that we cannot possibly manage and to manage those impacts that we can no longer avoid. That is a big, big deal.’
Source: Paris Climate Accord Is a Big, Big Deal – The New York Times

‘The global climate summit in Paris forged a landmark agreement on Saturday, setting the course for a historic transformation of the world’s fossil fuel-driven economy within decades in a bid to arrest global warming.’

Source: With landmark climate accord, world marks turn from fossil fuels | Reuters

‘LE BOURGET, France — After the stomping and cheering died down, and the hugs and toasts ended, a question hung in the air as the climate conference came to a close: What does the new deal really mean for the future of the Earth?’

Source: Climate Accord Is a Healing Step, if Not a Cure – The New York Times

‘LE BOURGET, France —  With the sudden bang of a gavel Saturday night, representatives of 195 nations reached a landmark accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change.’

Source: Nations Approve Landmark Climate Accord in Paris – The New York Times

Cheering inside the COP21 as the Paris Agreement is approved.

Christiana Figueres, COP President Laurent Fabius, and the others celebrate the Paris Agreement

Lord Stern and Al Gore and the delegates in the plenary celebrate the approval of the Paris Agreement

President of France François Hollande and UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres celebratory hug. Also UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and COP21 President Laurent Fabius

‘…well below 2 °C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5’

From the draft agreement: ‘Emphasizing with serious concern the urgent need to address the significant gap between the aggregate effect of Parties’ mitigation pledges in terms of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases by 2020 and aggregate emission pathways consistent with holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5’

‘French President Francois Hollande will join the Paris climate talks as delegates debate what organizers hope is the final draft of an unprecedented agreement among all countries to fight global warming together.’

Source: News from The Associated Press

Dec. 11, 2015, COP21, Paris

On what was to have been the final day of the negotiations, civil society groups staged a protest inside the COP21 grounds, where they unfurled a long red cloth representing a red line from the red Eiffel Tower replica and along the outdoor walkway between the buildings.

The negotiations have been extended at least until Saturday afternoon, and protests are planned in Paris at Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, in defiance of the official ban on protests that has been in effect since the terror attacks.

The ribbon, held by perhaps a hundred demonstrators, caused some congestion as delegates and others couldn’t cross it during the half hour event, and in addition many came out to see the event is what has been an unusually quite COP due to restrictions on demonstrations.

Report by James George