A global climate deal – if not now, then when?

With just two weeks until the 21st Conference of Parties (COP21) for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), most of the world seems to have rallied to the call to create a global regime on climate change. By the final deadline of 1 October, the UNFCCC secretariat had received 119 position papers – called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) – from 147 parties. Taken together with the 12 additional contributions submitted since, the 131 INDCs account for around 92% of total global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.