Any agreement on climate change must be inclusive: Iran official

A senior Iranian official says all sides attending the UN-sponsored summit on climate change in Paris, France, should make efforts to work out an “inclusive” binding agreement on ways to slow the pace of rising global temperatures.

“We need to ensure that this agreement is inclusive for all, and that no party is left behind. We need to make certain that this agreement is based upon meaningful mitigation commitments by developed country parties and differentiated contributions by developing nations,” Head of Iran’s Department of the Environment, Masoumeh Ebtekar told the UN Paris Climate Change Conference on Monday.

Ebtekar, who is also an Iranian vice president, further said the potential agreement should address the issue of global warming through a “rational approach.”

“We need to ensure that the agreement undertakes the immediate needs of developing nations, particularly the response measures, the loss and damage in areas such as droughts, floods and dust haze phenomena, which we suffer in our region,” she added.

The Iranian official further highlighted the general environmental policies outlined by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei last month, adding the policies are a forward-looking manifesto for sustainable development and a strong sign of solidarity with the international community to protect the Earth.

On November 17, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei set general environmental policies, issuing them to the heads of the executive, judiciary, and legislative branches of the Iranian government.

Among other things, the policies mandate the creation of a consistent national system for environmental protection, the coordinated and systematic management of environmental resources, the criminalization of environmental damage, devising an ecology atlas for the country, and the institutionalization of environmental-friendly culture and attitude.

Standing out among the policies is also an obligation for the development of green economy with emphasis on the development of low-carbon industries, clean forms of energy, organic agriculture, and management of waste material and water.

Ebtekar went on to say that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has also set out a transitional course to achieve a very robust, low carbon and green economy in Iran.

Leaders of 150 nations, along with 40,000 delegates from 195 countries, are attending the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP21, to try to tackle climate change on a global political level between November 30 and December 11, 2015.

The participants are working to achieve a legally-binding and universal agreement on reductions in greenhouse gas emissions meant to hold global average temperatures short of a 2-degree Celsius increase over pre-industrial global temperatures.

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