- Paris Climate Talks
Historic New Climate Deal: Surprises, Snubs, and What it Really Means
The world’s countries have agreed to initiate a momentous shift away from fossil fuels. Who are the winners and losers? What are the surprises? And what does it all mean?
LE BOURGET, France—The world came together.
More than 20 years after world leaders first tried hammering out an accord to tackle climate change, representatives of 195 nations on Saturday adopted a landmark agreement that seeks to scale back greenhouse gases and trigger a momentous shift away from coal, oil, and natural gas.
"It's rare to have an opportunity in a lifetime to change the world," French President Francois Hollande told the delegates Saturday, before the final decision came at about 7:30 p.m. (Central European Time).
After the agreement was reached, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon declared, “What was once unthinkable, is now unstoppable.”
Two weeks of marathon deal-making, which started with high hopes, ended with a surprisingly ambitious pact. Its 31 pages commit
