Row over legal nature of Paris climate deal

“Jurists will discuss the legal nature of an accord on whether it should be termed as a treaty or an international agreement,” Fabius told reporters.

 

“But the fact that a certain number of dispositions should have a practical effect and be legally binding is obvious so let’s not confuse things, which is perhaps what Mr Kerry has done,” said Fabius, who spoke to Kerry on Wednesday.

 

Senior officials from almost 200 nations will meet from 30 November to 11 December to try to rise above thechaotic climax of the last global climate change conference in Copenhagen in 2009 and nail down a final agreement to limit global warming.

 

However, while the European Union and developing nations are urging an internationally binding text, others, such as the United States, want only national enforcement.

 

Kerry said the text would not set “legally binding reduction targets like Kyoto”.

 

The Kyoto protocol, signed in 1997, imposed on all signatory countries an obligation to cut their carbon dioxide emissions by at least 5% in the period 2008-2012 versus 1990, a treaty that Washington refused to sign up to.

 

Read More: Row over legal nature of Paris climate deal | Environment | The Guardian