COP-15 - United Nations Climate Change Conference

The next international meeting of the United Nations Framework Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) will take place in Copenhagen from December 7 to December 18, 2009. As the main representative of the world-wide chemical industry, ICCA is looking forward to attend this event.

The Copenhagen meeting will try to reach a global agreement on how to limit - efficiently and fairly - the world’s Green House Gases (GHG) emissions. ICCA is representing one of the largest industrial emitters – which have, at the same time, the largest emission reduction solution potential. For ICCA, it is a great opportunity to show world-wide chemical industry’s commitment to protect the environment through enabling sustainable business growth.

ICCA is therefore preparing the road to Copenhagen so that these negotiations achieve a balanced result for every parties involved.

► More info on COP-15 website

 What is the COP-15 conference?

Since the UNFCCC entered into force, the parties have been meeting annually in Conferences of the Parties (COP) to assess progress in dealing with climate change, and beginning in the mid-1990s, to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol to establish legally binding obligations for developed countries to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The COP-15 is, thus, the continuation of a set of 14 previous meetings begun after that the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC) entered into force the 21 March 1994. The UNFCC is an international environmental treaty produced at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit (held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992).

The treaty is aimed at stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

The principal update is the Kyoto Protocol, which has become much better known than the UNFCCC itself.