Introduction to the Climate Change Conference

the Paris Climate Change Conference An introduction to the United Nations and the Paris Climate Change Conference What is the United Nations? What has the UN done to combat climate change so far? What is happening in Paris in 2015?

What is the United Nations? A UN poster from 1945 Image © Alamy / war posters The United Nations (UN) started in 1945. At the end of the Second World War, 51 countries signed the UN charter and became the first UN members. The UK was one of them. They hoped to prevent future conflicts, by talking and negotiation between countries, and acting together. Today there are 193 UN member states.

National flags outside the UN Headquarters in New York Ban Ki-moon, current UN Secretary General Images © Shutterstock / Kevin (L), / photo story (R) The UN has its main headquarters in New York, USA. Ban Ki-moon of South Korea is the Secretary General – the UN’s spokesperson. The UN gives countries a way to come together to discuss global issues, such as climate change, and find solutions to them.

The UN’s four main aims are to: keep international peace and security The UN General Assembly Hall in New York, USA. Image © Shutterstock / Sean Pavone The UN’s four main aims are to: keep international peace and security develop friendly relationships among nations solve international problems through cooperation be a centre where nations can work together.

What has the UN done to combat climate change so far? The UN has focused on reducing carbon emissions in order to tackle climate change. In 2010, governments agreed to reduce emissions so that global temperature increases are limited to 2°C. Pupils could describe the pattern on the graph. What do they notice about the change in carbon emissions over time? Image © Pearson Education Ltd / Oxford Designers & Illustrators Ltd

Changing global temperatures since 1850. The graph shows the difference between the temperature we would normally expect and the actual temperature Image © Pearson Education Ltd

The International Panel on Climate Change is set up. 1988 1992 1979 1995 The International Panel on Climate Change is set up. The Earth Summit is held in Rio. The first world climate change conference takes place. The first Conference of the Parties (COP1) takes place in Berlin. The Copenhagen accord is drafted at COP15. The Kyoto protocol comes into force. COP 21 is held in Paris in December. The Kyoto protocol is adopted at COP3. For a full list of timeline events see http://www.un.org/climatechange/towards-a-climate-agreement/. Individual pupils could be given aspects such as the IPCC, the Earth Summit, the Kyoto protocol, the Copenhagen accord etc to research and provide a summary for other pupils. A ten-minute BBC radio programme ‘Witness’ on the World Service describes the negotiations behind the Kyoto protocol. 2009 2005 2015 1997

What is happening in Paris? The 21st annual Conference of Parties (or COP21) is happening in Paris, France from 30 November to 11 December 2015. The hope is to reach an agreement, for the first time in 20 years of UN negotiations, that all countries will sign up to. The aim is to keep global warming below 2°C and prevent runaway climate change. The 2014 Conference of Parties (COP 20) was held in Lima, Peru Image © Alamy / epa european pressphoto agency b.v.

Before COP21 begins, each country will publish what it has done to reduce emissions and what it plans to do next. Plans for the conference – it will: focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as on helping people adapt to climate change create a $100 billion per year fund, to help developing countries combat climate change and ensure sustainable development be flexible, to meet each country’s needs and their ability to change. The aim is to reach an agreement that: will come into force in 2020 will help move the world to a low-carbon future will be sustainable so that change is long-term all countries will sign up to.

More suggestions You could follow the Paris Climate Change Conference on Twitter at #cop21. You could put together a scrapbook of news articles covering COP21. Have a look at the Newsround or Guardian websites to start you off. You could watch the official COP21 video on YouTube. Learn more about the work of the United Nations here.