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The 2015 Paris outcome is going to require higher standards of behaviour from all 196 Parties to the Framework Convention. What is required is a Cabinet paper no later than mid-‘16 that does the following: 1) Acknowledges the integrity, and applicability, of the principle of equity in the ’92 Framework Convention, and the results which some of the research institutes have reached regarding the responsibility of each State party for its national emissions within the Global Carbon Budget, including for the specific year 2030, noting in particular New Zealand’s NRL; 2) Explores the maximum domestic abatement potential for New Zealand by 2030, and acknowledges a responsibility to make up, through climate financing, any shortfall between this and its NRL; 3) Explores the most effective set of climate policies (carbon pricing and/or taxing) and regulatory measures designed to reach the maximum domestic abatement potential (the National Climate Action Plan); 4) Ensures that the National Climate Action Plan reflects optimal equity among all relevant inter-sectoral and societal interests, to the extent possible.

Now that the Paris Agreement has ‘brought us all together’ with common intent to protect ourselves from dangerous climate change, it is time we stopped shying away from each nation's actual National Responsibility Level for their share of the Global Carbon Budget. The world has moved away from the ‘top-down’ to the ‘bottom-up’ approach. Dividing up the Global Carbon Budget is the most sensitive exercise on God’s Earth right now. To this day, no government is prepared to even enter this kind of discourse with numbers; nor for that matter is the UNFCCC Secretariat. But it is time we began to explore the numbers, not leaving it to the research institutes but taking responsibility for it within governments and the UN.

Rwandans have casted their votes in a national referendum aimed at maintaining the incumbent President to be elected for three more presidential terms. The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda does not support any change in the constitution, especially the lifting of presidential term limits and instead calls for the reduction of the term duration from seven to five years. The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda will not give up on the struggle to make Rwanda a vibrant democracy.

COP21 has just ended; there will be no more long debate, serious situation, disappointed gimmick, and high tense atmosphere. What can we pick from the biggest event, which was participated by 195 countries in Paris? A legal agreement in which all of participated countries should keep the global emission below 2 degrees. It became a long debate among civil organisations around the world. Some of them stated that it was a difficult action to be achieved due to escalated earth temperature with 0,85 Celsius since 1880, according to the meeting on climate change in 2014. Therefore, significant reduced emission is needed, especially from the biggest emission producing countries, such as the USA and China.

The outcome is historic. The international community is, substantively for the first time, acting as a global community facing a global problem. All 196 parties are accepting a legally-binding obligation to undertake effective action to avert dangerous climate change. The ’92 Framework Convention set up the global objective and structure. The 2015 protocol (otherwise known as the Paris Agreement) is requiring nationally-determined contributions (NDCs) from everybody to deliver on the global objective. It is a big success. Now the hard part begins. The hard part is because the 196 parties are, currently, under-delivering on the global effort. And, more critically, it has yet to be shown that the mechanism for remedying that is structurally sound.

At present, the text fails to avert dangerous climate change. A diplomatic success in producing a document. A political failure in that the document does not guarantee attainment of the stated purpose. In what ways does it not, will it not, do that? In two ways: 1) The global emissions reductions are inadequate, both as to magnitude and speed; 2) There is no meaningful exploration of national responsibility levels for sharing the Global Carbon Budget.

The President’s text of 9 Dec. has weakened the co-chairs’ text of 5 Dec. to a dangerous degree. With mitigation, there are eight main components: purpose, long-term goal, individual effort, progression, timing, ex ante process, adjustments, and stocktake. With four of these, the text remains more or less unchanged (individual effort; progression, timing and adjustment). But in four others, the text is weakened, as is shown below.

The new ‘text’ circulated this week at COP-21 tells the story of our global drama. The ‘Ad Hoc Working Group for Enhanced Action’ has submitted the text to the Conference of the Parties which is now required to deliberate and adopt it. This is jargon for ‘the diplomatic grouping responsible for the future of Earth’. There are two documents. The first is the draft Paris Agreement that is essentially a protocol to the 1992 Framework Convention. It is a free-standing document. The second is a draft decision of the Conference. The Conference, in its decision, will itself adopt the Paris Agreement and attach it as an Annex. The two texts are like the work of an addict: 1) We know, and now acknowledge belatedly, that we have a problem. But we refuse to impose binding strictures upon ourselves. So we allow ourselves voluntary measures. 2) We know, and acknowledge, that these voluntary measures are insufficient to prevent dangerous climate change. But we are putting in place a monitoring mechanism that we know will not remedy matters in time.