Governments have stressed their commitments to sign a new agreement in Paris next year, pledging climate action beyond 2020. This plan represents the first major signal of the world’s willingness to fight climate change. This deal represents an important step especially after the summit in Copenhagen five years ago, where hopes of a comprehensive treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions were dashed, experts say. Moreover, this commitment represents a crucial step in relation to the recent report realized by the UN science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC has recently announced that rising annual greenhouse gas emissions were impacting the climate, posing severe risks. In this way, countries need to undertake stricter targets because greenhouse gas emissions must fall in the 2020s in order to avoid the worst effects. Additionally, other experts, as the International Energy Agency and the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, have warned that the timing is critical. Governments need to make important choices that will determine consequences in the long term. Experts stress that climate negotiations are complex because they cover a wide range of issues, affecting daily life in almost every country of the world. In this context, mitigation and adaptation represent the central elements of the international agenda. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, limiting climate change, and undertaking stronger measures for climate change are the key objectives of governments, expert say. In this way, both mitigation and adaptation are playing a key role. Mitigation is about changing how the world generates its energy, shifting away from unabated fossil fuels. Additionally, adaptation is about making agriculture and infrastructure including cities, ports, power plants and roads more resilient to weather extremes and rising sea levels. Environmental expertssuggest that a climate agreement must achieve trust, ensuring clear benefits for everyone. In this context, developed and developing countries need to cooperate in order to achieve concrete results. In addition to that, rich countries should boost measures to held poorer countries in order to cut emissions and prepare for the impacts of a changing climate. Experts highlight that governments have significantly committed to pledge climate action under a Paris Agreement. This situation represents a crucial step ahead, as a major advance from past agreements. In relation to this, a Paris agreement could represent that first truly global commitment to tackle climate change, experts suggest. The gLAWcal Team EPSEI project Friday, 28 November 2014 (Source: ChinaDialogue)