A two-week UN summit in Paris has agreed the first climate deal to commit all countries to cut emissions
The international agreement was gavelled through by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to claps and cheers
More than 190 countries had been working on the pact for four years after earlier attempts to reach such a deal failed
Negotiations ran into the small hours for three consecutive nights in order to hammer out the final draft
As delegates prepare for the plenary session, journalists and camera crews are also getting ready:
Elsewhere, pavilions and displays are starting to be dismantled...
...and night is settling over the deserted red Eiffel Tower replica:
The US Secretary of State is one of the conference attendees filing into the huge plenary hall.
Many of the delegations are sharing smiles and chatter.
Image source, UNFCCCJohn Kerry meets the representative of SIngapore
The room is now filling up rapidly
Demonstrators in Paris wore red at a demonstration near the Arc de Triomphe, as the BBC's Iolo ap Dafydd reports.
Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, BBC News, Paris
The statement from the Like-Minded Developing Countries group will come as a big relief to conference chief Laurent Fabius, as the French try to line up support for the deal before going into the plenary session expected at 17:30CET.
The group, comprising Saudi Arabia, China and India has always been seen in these UN discussions as foot-draggers when it comes to taking action on climate change, even if they have different motivations.
For the Saudis and other Gulf states, they have been seeking to prevent a reference to 1.5C in the text because that would affect their lucrative oil reserves more quickly than a 2C target.
India and China wanted 2C because it gives their economies longer to develop using cheaper fossil fuels such as coal.
But the text of the agreement, at present, is a classic compromise of interests.
The small island states have been pushing 1.5C and have been supported by the EU and the US and other developed countries. This is reflected in the document - but the rather fuzzy description of how the world should get there is likely to have pleased Saudi Arabia and China.
“It's good enough,” said Olai Uludong, a climate ambassador from Palau.
“It's a political, conscious decision, a very delicate balance, but it's woolly as they took out the numbers.”
At the moment it doesn't look like the hall itself is packed with delegates - but the meeting to assess the proposed agreement was scheduled for 16:30 GMT.
Anticipation, nonetheless, is building...
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With news (see previous post) that one key group is broadly in favour of the deal on the table here in Paris - here is a recap from BBC environment correspondent Matt McGrath on the groupings that wield power at these UN talks:
One of the groupings that commentators believed would be most reluctant to sign a deal here in Paris has come out in favour of the draft agreement.
A spokesman for the Like Minded Developing countries group, comprising China, India, Saudi Arabia and others said they were "happy" with the deal.
"We think it is balanced," said the bloc's spokesman, Gurdial Singh Nijar - who represents Malaysia at the talks.
"India agrees. China agrees. Saudi Arabia agrees. The Arab group agrees."
The BBC also understands that a key member of the Chinese delegation is travelling home already. "So they must be OK with it," one observer said.
One of the participants in the climate talks says that we could be in for a long evening here at COP21.
Palau's climate ambassador Olai Uludong says that delegates won't want to miss their chance to have their say:
Quote MessageYou have to have grandstanding - you can't come to the historical moment and not grandstand. Come on! You have 195 countries, you have the world holding its breath, how can you not grandstand?
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David Shukman
Science editor, BBC News
The word ‘historic’ is getting a lot of play at the moment.
No surprise; we may be on the brink of the first agreement to try to tackle climate change that involves every country on the planet.
This takes us a very long way from the Copenhagen summit I mentioned in an earlier post.
But the conference’s French hosts now have to see how their text goes down and, inevitably, there are winners and losers. The negotiators had to find a way of matching some very different demands.
I’ve just been listening to some NGO spokespeople dismiss the targets for limiting warming as too timid and the promises on finance as too unreliable.
Others are delighted to see that there is a reference to the need to balance the sources of greenhouse gases with the sinks that absorb them during the second half of the century – a paragraph that implies a massive reduction in the burning of fossil fuels.
And a few have latched onto the system for reviewing each country’s voluntary carbon pledges as being tougher than many had expected.
Now we await the reactions of delegations. If they are unhappy, will Francois Hollande’s words about Nelson Mandela and the recent terrorist attacks make any difference?
The actions of all the countries who ratify this UN deal are self-determined. Individual parties have made their own pledges, termed "intended nationally determined contributions" (INDCs), which the Paris agreement will bundle together into a treaty.
What has been negotiated this week is the wording of that overarching agreement.
Some 148 countries met the deadline for submitting pledges, but more have been trickling in ever since.
Now, news breaks that one more country has submitted its INDC.
UN climate chief Christina Figueres welcomed Saint Kitts and Nevis into the fold:
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Following news that the plenary session was postponed, BBC science editor David Shukman tweets:
Meanwhile the World Resources Institute's Jennifer Morgan, speaking to our science correspondent Rebecca Morelle on BBC World News, said the deal simply had to succeed:
Navin Singh Khadka
Environment reporter, BBC World Service
A bloc of Least Developed Countries at COP21 has said they are happy that the final draft climate deal has recognised their demand for limiting global warming to 1.5C.
Chairman of the group Giza Gasper Martins told the BBC it was a huge achievement for poor and small island nations.
Although the proposed agreement declares a goal of holding the global average temperature rise to "well below 2C" above pre-industrial levels, it also adds that countries have agreed to "pursue efforts" to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees.
Mr Martins said the draft text also elaborated on how that target could be achieved.
Some observers have criticised that no deep carbon cut targets were committed, making the 1.5C goal unrealistically ambitious.
Scientists say that the world has already seen a nearly 1C rise since the pre-industrial period. And poor and island countries argue that a 2C rise would be an issue of survival for them.
They vigorously disputed the 2C goal of the Paris climate summit - with, it seems, qualified success.
Screens around the Le Bourget conference briefly flickered into life with a live feed from one of the plenary halls - only to broadcast the announcement that the session was postponed (see previous post).
Those lines and lines of chairs will sit empty for a while longer.
And then, will they see a global climate deal passed? Has the delay been called to make time for closed-door discussions, to smooth the transition of this draft agreement into a treaty?
Stay with us for more updates.
Delegates have just been told that the session to discuss - and possibly ratify - the proposed deal will now take place almost two hours later than planned.
Quote MessageRich countries have moved the goal posts so far that we are left with a sham of a deal in Paris. Through piecemeal pledges and bullying tactics, rich countries have pushed through a very bad deal.
Sara Shaw, Friends of the Earth
Quote MessageThis agreement is highly significant in the way in which it responds to the scientific evidence around climate change. The science has never been clearer about the risks we face and the new aim of keeping temperature rise to 1.5 degrees better reflects these risks.
Prof Joanna Haigh, Grantham Institute at Imperial College London
Quote MessageThe final draft text recognises the imperatives of the science community to tackle climate change. The three key elements to do it are there in some form: keep warming well below two degrees, practically move away from fossil fuels, and review each country’s contribution every five years so they scale up to the challenge. The emissions cuts promised by countries now are still wholly insufficient, but the agreement as a whole sends a strong message to businesses, investors, and citizens that new energy is clean and fossil fuels belong to the past.
Prof Corinne Le Quéré, University of East Anglia
Quote MessageWith this agreement, the rich world has got the universal participation it has sought for 15 years. It may also herald a revolution in international governance. The west must now keep its side of the bargain by delivering steeper emission reductions and the finance agreed.
Prof Michael Grubb, University College London
Quote MessageIt’s outrageous that the deal that’s on the table is being spun as a success when it undermines the rights of the world’s most vulnerable communities and has almost nothing binding to ensure a safe and liveable climate for future generations. In fact the deal as it stands, in the context of [individual country pledges], sets us firmly on the path to a devastating three degrees of global warming.
Nick Dearden, Global Justice Now
Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, BBC News, Paris
The way the world will keep temperatures from rising above 2C from pre-industrial levels is a little unclear in the draft agreement.
The text talks about the countries peaking their emissions as soon as possible and recognises that this will take longer for developing nations.
But it talks about achieving “a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of greenhouse gases in the second half of this century,” a phrase that most people are having trouble de-coding.
As delegates pour over the fine detail of the draft agreement, campaigners take to the streets of Paris to raise awareness of populations they say are at-risk from climate change resulting from burning fossil fuels.
Image source, EPA
Image source, APThe chairman of the Grantham Institute on Climate Change and the Environment - and author of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change - Nicholas Stern has hailed the proposed deal as a "historic moment" for future generations.
He said in a statement:
Quote MessageThe Paris agreement is a turning point in the world’s fight against unmanaged climate change, which threatens prosperity and well-being among both rich and poor countries. The agreement creates enormous opportunities as countries begin to accelerate along the path towards low-carbon economic development and growth.
Here in Paris, only two copies of the printed document are being given out at a time
Reactions are now flooding in from campaign NGOs and other commentators.
Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace, said that although the "wheel of climate action" turns slowly, it had turned in Paris - putting fossil fuel companies on the "wrong side of history":
Quote MessageThere’s much in the text that has been diluted and polluted by the people who despoil our planet, but it contains a new imperative to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees. That single number, and the new goal of net zero emissions by the second half of this century, will cause consternation in the boardrooms of coal companies and the palaces of oil-exporting states.
The head of WWF delegation, Tasneem Essop, also said countries needed to step up and act - but said the wording of the overall goal was a "strong signal".
Quote MessageBy including a long-term temperature goal of well below 2C of warming with a reference to a 1.5C goal, the latest draft text sends a strong signal that governments are committed to being in line with science. What we need now is for their actions, including emission reductions and finance, to add up to delivering on that goal.
ActionAid's chief executive Adriano Campolina said the text didn't go far enough to protect the world's poorest people:
Quote MessageThe elevated status and hype around the idea of a 1.5C warming limit didn't result in any real and concrete commitments. A limit of 1.5C cannot be achieved with the emission cuts rich countries put on the table, which will in fact lead to temperature rises of 3C.
Mohamed Adow, senior climate advisor for Christian Aid, said that the deal would usher in a new dawn:
Quote MessageFor the first time in history the whole world has made a public commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions