The main hall of the COP21 climate meetings in Paris echoed with applause Saturday, after France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius presented the final draft of an agreement aimed at curbing global warming that will face a ratification vote within hours.
"The end is in sight. Let us now finish the job," UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told delegates at the two-week meetings in Paris. "The whole world is watching. Billions of people are relying on your wisdom."
The agreement, which was publicly released Saturday morning (ET), sets the goal of limiting the world's rise in average temperature to "well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius."
For it to take effect, all 196 international entities represented at the talks will need to adopt the agreement. After a ratification vote that's slated for Saturday afternoon in France, individual governments in the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change will need to adopt the final document.
"Major hurdles included how much wealthy countries would spend to help developing countries adapt to climate change," NPR's Christopher Joyce reports from Paris. Chris adds, "donor countries will retain the right to monitor how that money is spent.
Urging negotiators to seize a chance to change the world, French President Francois Hollande said, "History is here. All the conditions are met. The decisive agreement for the planet is now."
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