The COP21 ‘Paris Agreement’ was hailed as “The world’s greatest diplomatic success,” involving all 196 nations.
That success, in December 2015, was built up from ‘bottom up’ pledges (Intended Nationally Determined Contributions) – in diametric contrast to the perceived failure of the COP15 Copenhagen summit in 2009, when the bold ambition of a legally binding global agreement to govern greenhouse gas emissions for decades had descended into political grandstanding, and the relative deflation of a “political declaration” enshrining emissions targets up to only 2020.