Recap of the Paris climate agreement: the 2015 UN Climate Conference: COP21.

• Author: Wilder, Piper
• Position: CLIMATE CHANGE - Conference news

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Keep global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), demand transparency in emissions, and hold all nations to some degree of legal accountability--were at the top of the list of 2015 United Nations Climate Conference: Conference Of Parties 21, or COP21, held in Paris and attended by representatives of more than 190 nations, including the United States. The summit concluded December 12 in Paris, but not without a heart-pounding race to the finish that included a daylong extension to the fourteen-day effort. The world now has its "first truly international plan to address climate change."

The Paris Agreement will certainly impact, and positively shape, Alaska's clean energy economy in the years to come. The carbon reduction goals demanded will stoke investments that create jobs and opportunity.

Here are the highlights of the agreement, according to US Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern:

* The architecture has fundamentally changed from previous Conference Of Parties (COP) summits. Now, standards apply to both developing and developed nations. This matters, since previous protocols were hampered by disagreement on the premise that developed and developing economies should have different standards. Now, the standards are equal for all.

* The ambitious goal to keep global mean temperature change below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)--if not striving for 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit)--was adopted.

* All 195 signatory nations will revisit these targets every five years, making adjustments to it as necessary.

* Nations committed to tracking carbon emissions transparently. This is the primary clause that...