December 12, 2015
Washington, DC

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Vice President of Climate Change, Lou Leonard, issued the following statement at the UN climate talks in reaction to the proposed final #COP21 agreement:

“The draft final text offered by the French Presidency contains strong signals that would commit the world to a temperature goal that’s in line with science. They key to making that meaningful is how countries agree to strengthen commitments on an accelerated timeframe that keeps that temperature goal in sight. Some of these opportunities are built into the current draft agreement.

"Most importantly, Parties are called back to the table in 2018 to take stock of progress and submit stronger commitments. To make this 2018 political moment effective, both the finance and emissions reductions pledges must be scaled up before 2020 to provide any chance of limiting warming to well below 2C or 1.5C. Our biggest concern at this point is that there’s currently no guarantee of assistance for those who will suffer the most from the impacts of climate change.”