Head of Iran’s Department of the Environment, Masoumeh Ebtekar, held a phone conversation with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Saturday, following the climate agreement reached that day in Paris between negotiators from 196 countries.
Ebtekar voiced her expectation that the situation of those countries which have suffered the most from climate change, such as Iran, and the adverse effects of war and unrest left on the region, have been fully considered in the Climate Agreement.
She referred to the intense and complicated bargaining in a Paris suburb on climate change in late November, expressing hope that the agreement has included demands and expectations of developing countries to a great extent and would save the planet from reaching over two degrees C which could otherwise leave irreversible adverse impacts on the biosphere.
Ebtekar highlighted the need for the accord to be equitable and inclusive, deeming the participation of over 180 nations in reaching the agreement the ‘greatest global agreement’ and a ‘remarkable victory’ for multilateralism and moderation.
Laurent Fabius, for his part, hailed Iranian delegation for its effective help and support during the COP21 on Nov. 30, saying the parties have made all efforts to include the immediate needs of developing counties in the final pact and close the gaps in opinions to reach the agreement.
The text of the Agreement was formally adopted on Saturday at the 21st meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention Climate Change after two weeks of talks and an intensive three days of negotiations.
The 31-page document calls for ‘holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees C', obliging countries to ‘reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible’, sets up a plan to help developing countries meet a new requirement, and calls on nations to establish 'a new collective quantified goal' of at least $100 billion a year in climate-related financing by 2020.
The Agreement is scheduled to go into effect from 2020.
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