The United States has sent the United Nations a suggested outline for a global climate agreement to be completed in Paris in 2015. The agreement, which would be applicable to all countries after 2020, will be the subject of the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) at the 2015 UN Conference on Climate Change.
According to news reports, the U.S. proposed the agreement be written with flexibility to avoid future amendments to address certain refinements, such as the future reporting of a country's carbon emissions. The recommendations also restated that the U.S. would not support a "bifurcated approach," that is, one that would not require commitments from countries such as China and India. The U.S. submission did not suggest what sort of legal requirements should be in the 2015 agreement, but noted that certain items, such as emissions reporting requirements, should be legally binding.