Copenhagen Accord

The 15^th Conference of the Parties, held in December 2009, culminated in the Copenhagen Accord, a significant breakthrough in the global effort to address climate change.

The Accord includes emission reduction commitments from all major emitters including the United States, China, India and Brazil, and provides for international review of both developed and developing countries' targets and actions. This reflects Canada's long-standing position that real progress on climate change requires a global agreement that includes all major emitters.

The Accord provides for significant international financing, including a collective commitment by developed countries to provide new and additional resources approaching $30 billion from 2010-2012, with adaptation funding focused on the most vulnerable, especially least-developed countries, small island developing states and Africa.

The Accord also establishes the Copenhagen Green Climate Fund, as part of a joint effort to mobilize US$100 billion per year by 2020 in public and private investments to address the adaptation and mitigation needs of developing countries.

On Jan. 29, 2010 Canada inscribed in the Copenhagen Accord its 2020 economy-wide target of a 17 percent reduction in greenhouse gases from 2005 levels. This target is completely aligned with the U.S. target.

Canada played an active and constructive role at the negotiating table in Copenhagen and will continue to work constructively in 2010 in the lead-up to COP 16 in Cancun, Mexico to implement the Copenhagen Accord and to complete negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to reach a legally-binding, post-2012 international agreement that is fair, effective and comprehensive.

In addition, Canada will:

• continue to invest in research, development and demonstration of transformational clean energy technologies, such as carbon capture and storage, with a view to accelerating the global deployment of such technologies;
• support nationally appropriate mitigation actions in developing countries, including to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and from agriculture, subject to international measurement, reporting and verification; and
• continue to support international action that strengthens the capacity of the poorest and most vulnerable to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate.