And the rest is history....
Official representatives of 195 countries agreed during the last hours of the UN Climate Summit to a common target for keeping global warming below 2°C at the end of this century. The pledges they made do not yet match the target, but the governments also agreed to review performance every five years and thus open the door for later improvements.
A demand for a rapid phase out of fossils was politically impossible given the opposition of countries with economies depending overwhelmingly on oil and gas, such as Saudi Arabia.
It's a victory of the countless people who have worked on understanding climate change, raising public awareness, triggering citizen movements and early action.
From now on, the emphasis is on implementing all existing pledges and filling the gaps to reach zero emissions as fast as possible. Civil society organisations around the globe are well advised to focus on monitoring delivery and helping to broaden and deepen commitments further. Not only can everybody do their bit, however small, but big emitters like the air industry and maritime shipping also need to come into the fold, given that together they account already for about 6% of global emissions and rising.
We are happy to have contributed to this encouraging result of the Summit, but we also know a lot of hard work lies ahead to enable the major economic and technical transformations required in a socially acceptable manner.