UN members agree deal at Lima climate talks

BBC News 14 Dec 14;

United Nations members have reached an agreement on how countries should tackle climate change.

Delegates have approved a framework for setting national pledges to be submitted to a summit next year.

Differences over the draft text caused the two-week talks in Lima, Peru, to overrun by two days.

Environmental groups said the deal was an ineffectual compromise, but the EU said it was a step towards achieving a global climate deal next year in Paris.

The talks proved difficult because of divisions between rich and poor countries over how to spread the burden of pledges to cut carbon emissions.

'Not perfect'

The agreement was adopted hours after a previous draft was rejected by developing countries, who accused rich nations of shirking their responsibilities to fight global warming and pay for its impacts.

Peru's environment minister, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who chaired the summit, told reporters: "As a text it's not perfect, but it includes the positions of the parties."

Miguel Arias Canete, EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, said the EU had wanted a more ambitious outcome but he still believed that "we are on track to agree a global deal" at a summit in Paris, France, next year.

UK climate change minister Ed Davey said: "I am not going to say it will be a walk in the park in Paris."

He described the deal as "a really important step" on the road to Paris.

"That's when the real deal has to be done."

There was a good deal of optimism at the start of these talks as the recent emissions agreement between the US and China was seen as an historic breakthrough. But that good spirit seemed to evaporate in two weeks of intense wrangling between rich and poor here in Lima.

It ended in a compromise that some participants believe keeps the world on track to reach a new global treaty by the end of next year.

None of the 194 countries attending the talks walked away with everything they wanted, but everybody got something.

As well as pledges and finance, the agreement points towards a new classification of nations. Rather than just being divided into rich and poor, the text attempts to reflects the more complex world of today, where the bulk of emissions originate in developing countries.

While progress in Lima was limited, and many decisions were simply postponed, the fact that 194 nations assented to this document means there is still momentum for a deal in Paris. Much tougher tests lie ahead.

Climate deal heralds historic shift

The talks, which began on 1 December, had been due to end on Friday but ran over into the weekend
The final draft is said to have alleviated those concerns with by saying countries have "common but differentiated responsibilities".

"We've got what we wanted," Indian environment minister Prakash Javedekar told reporters, saying the document preserved the notion that richer nations had to lead the way in making cuts in emissions.

It also restored a promise to poorer countries that a "loss and damage" scheme would be established to help them cope with the financial implications of rising temperatures.

However, it weakened language on national pledges, saying countries "may" instead of "shall" include quantifiable information showing how they intend to meet their emissions targets.

The agreed document calls for:

=An "ambitious agreement" in 2015 that reflects "differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities" of each nation
=Developed countries to provide financial support to "vulnerable" developing nations
=National pledges to be submitted by the first quarter of 2015 by those states "ready to do so"
=Countries to set targets that go beyond their "current undertaking"
=The UN climate change body to report back on the national pledges in November 2015

Environmental groups were scathing in their response to the document, saying the proposals were nowhere need drastic enough.

Sam Smith, chief of climate policy for the environmental group WWF, said: "The text went from weak to weaker to weakest and it's very weak indeed."

Jagoda Munic, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International, said fears the talks would fail to deliver "a fair and ambitious outcome" had been proven "tragically accurate".

At UN climate talks, a crack in rich-poor barrier
KARL RITTER Associated Press Yahoo News 15 Dec 14;

LIMA, Peru (AP) — A last-minute deal that salvaged U.N. climate talks from collapse early Sunday sends a signal the rich-poor divide that long held up progress can be overcome with a year to go before a landmark pact is supposed to be adopted in Paris.

Still, it remains to be seen whether governments can come up with a new formula for how countries in different stages of development should contribute in a way that keeps global warming from reaching dangerous levels.

"This issue will be contentious and it will need to be worked through all the way to Paris," U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said after the marathon talks in Lima finished, more than 30 hours behind schedule.

The U.N. talks were still far away from reaching any agreement on reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to a level that scientists say would keep global warming in check. But the Paris agreement would be the first to call on all countries to control their emissions.

The U.S. and other developed nations say that means tearing down the firewall in negotiations that compels only rich countries to rein in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Though it was agreed in 2011 that goals set in Paris would be "applicable to all," many developing countries worry they will be required to take on emissions controls that stymie their economic growth. In Lima they angrily rejected a draft text that made no mention of different responsibilities and capabilities to fight global warming.

"We are in a differentiated world. That is the reality," Malaysian negotiator Gurdial Singh Nijar told delegates. "Many of you colonized us, so we started from a completely different point."

Despite the tough rhetoric, the conference ended Sunday with a compromise based on a groundbreaking U.S.-China deal on emissions targets last month.

The Lima decision noted the principle in the 1992 U.N. climate change convention that countries have "common but differentiated responsibilities" to tackle climate change. But like the U.S.-China deal, it added that this should be seen "in light of different national circumstances," suggesting countries' responsibilities change over time as they develop.

"It sounds like a tiny thing, but it's very important," said Nathaniel Keohane, vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund. "I think we're starting to see the plates move."

How to interpret what it means in practice is going to be critical over the next year as countries firm up their emissions targets for the Paris agreement.

Asked about the implications of the Lima deal, Chinese negotiator Su Wei repeated China's mantra that the purpose of the Paris agreement is to "reinforce and enhance" the 1992 convention, not rewrite it.

"This paragraph may represent a compromise that both sides can interpret as they choose to," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Yet the joint announcement with the U.S. signaled that China is ready to assume a bigger role in the global response to climate change. For the first time, the world's biggest carbon polluter set a fixed target to peak emissions by 2030.

Showing signs that it, too, anticipates the end of a binary view of the world, Brazil put forth a proposal of "concentric circles" with different expectations for developed, emerging economies and least-developed countries.

The final agreement in Lima didn't address Brazil's proposal, though it noted that climate action plans by least-developed countries and small island nations should reflect their "special circumstances."

All countries are supposed to present their plans to control emissions before the Paris agreement next year. In Lima, negotiators listed things that countries "may" want to include in their pledges, such as time frames, base years and methods for calculating emissions.

China and other developing countries blocked a proposal for a review process that would allow the pledges to be compared against each other. Instead, the U.N. climate agency will prepare a report analyzing the "aggregate" effect of all pledges a month before Paris.

Meanwhile, rich countries resisted any firm commitments of money to help poor countries tackle climate change, though many separately announced pledges to a Green Climate Fund set up for that purpose.

Environmental groups worried the outcome of the Paris talks will be a purely voluntary system where both developed and developing countries propose weak voluntary actions without regard to the deep emissions cuts scientists say are needed to avoid dangerous levels of warming.

Emissions keep rising every year because cuts in rich countries aren't enough to offset fast growth in China, India and other emerging economies. Meanwhile, climate impacts ranging from sea level rise and increasingly freakish weather are becoming more noticeable as warming continues. This year could go down as the hottest on record.

"Political leaders at the U.N. talks need to be reminded that they can't negotiate with the climate," said Mohamed Adow, a climate change expert at Christian Aid. "Otherwise we're in danger of sleepwalking into a failed deal in Paris."

Deal salvaged at UN climate talks in Peru
KARL RITTER Associated Press Yahoo News 14 Dec 14;

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Climate negotiators salvaged a compromise deal in Lima early Sunday that sets the stage for a global pact in Paris next year, but rejected a rigorous review of the greenhouse gas emissions limits they plan.

More than 30 hours behind schedule, delegates from more than 190 countries agreed on what information should go into the pledges that countries submit for the expected Paris pact.

They argued all day Saturday over the wording of the decision, with developing nations worried that the text blurred the distinction between what rich and poor countries can be expected to do.

The final draft alleviated those concerns with language saying countries have "common but differentiated responsibilities" to deal with global warming.

"As a text it's not perfect, but it includes the positions of the parties," said Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who was the conference chairman and had spent most of the day meeting separately with delegations.

The momentum from last month's joint U.S.-China deal on emissions targets faded quickly in Lima as rifts reopened over who should do what to fight global warming. The goal of the talks is to shape a global agreement in Paris that puts the world on a path to reduce the heat-trapping gases that scientists say are warming the planet.

Many developing countries, the most vulnerable to climate change's impacts, accuse rich nations of shirking their responsibilities to curb climate change and pay for the damage it inflicts.

In presenting a new, fourth draft just before midnight, Peru's environment minister gave a sharply reduced body of delegates an hour to review it. Many delegates had already quit the makeshift conference center on the grounds of Peru's army headquarters.

It also restored language demanded by small island states at risk of being flooded by rising seas, mentioning a "loss and damage" mechanism agreed upon in last year's talks in Poland that recognizes that nations hardest hit by climate change will require financial and technical help.

"We need a permanent arrangement to help the poorest of the world," Ian Fry, negotiator for the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu, said at a midday session.

However, the approved draft weakened language on the content of the pledges, saying they "may" instead of "shall" include quantifiable information showing how countries intend to meet their emissions targets.

Also, top carbon polluter China and other major developing countries opposed plans for a review process that would allow the pledges to be compared against one another before Paris.

The new draft mentioned only that all pledges would be reviewed a month ahead Paris to assess their combined effect on climate change.

"I think it's definitely watered down from what we expected," said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Sam Smith, chief of climate policy for the environmental group WWF, said: "The text went from weak to weaker to weakest and it's very weak indeed."

Chief U.S. negotiator Todd Stern acknowledged that negotiations had been contentious but said the outcome was "quite good in the end." He had warned Saturday that failing to leave Lima with an accord would be "seen as a serious breakdown" that could put the Paris agreement and the entire U.N. process at risk.

Though negotiating tactics always play a role, virtually all disputes in the U.N. talks reflect a wider issue of how to divide the burden of fixing the planetary warming that scientists say results from human activity, primarily the burning of oil, coal and natural gas.

Historically, Western nations are the biggest emitters. Currently, most CO2 emissions are coming from developing countries led by China and India as they grow their economies and lift millions of people out of poverty.

During a brief stop in Lima on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said fixing the problem is "everyone's responsibility, because it's the net amount of carbon that matters, not each country's share."

According to the U.N.'s scientific panel on climate change, the world can pump out no more than about 1 trillion tons of carbon to have a likely chance of avoiding dangerous levels of warming —defined in the U.N. talks as exceeding 2 degrees centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above 19th-century averages.

It already has spent more than half of that carbon budget as emissions continue to rise, driven by growth in China and other emerging economies.

Scientific reports say climate impacts are already happening and include rising sea levels, intensifying heat waves and shifts in weather patterns causing floods in some areas and droughts in others.

The U.N. weather agency said last week that 2014 could become the hottest year on record.

U.N. talks agree building blocks for new-style climate deal in 2015
Alister Doyle and Valerie Volcovici, Reuters Yahoo News 14 Dec 14;

LIMA (Reuters) - About 190 nations agreed on Sunday the building blocks of a new-style global deal due in 2015 to combat climate change amid warnings that far tougher action will be needed to limit increases in global temperatures.

Under the deal reached in Lima, governments will submit national plans for reining in greenhouse gas emissions by an informal deadline of March 31, 2015 to form the basis of a global agreement due at a summit in Paris in a year's time.

Most of the tough decisions about how to slow climate change were postponed until then. "Much remains to be done in Paris next year," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said.

The texts, agreed two days into overtime after two weeks of talks came close to collapsing, appeased emerging economies led by China and India, concerned that previous drafts imposed too heavy a burden on emerging economies compared to the rich.

"We've got what we wanted," said Indian Environment Minister Prakash Javedekar, who said the text preserved a notion enshrined in a 1992 climate convention that the rich have to lead the way in making cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

It also satisfied rich nations led by the United States who say it is time for fast-growing emerging economies to rein in fast-rising emissions. China is now the biggest greenhouse gas emitter ahead of the United States, the EU and India.

U.S. Special Climate Change Envoy Todd Stern said that a joint U.S.-China deal last month to curb emissions had helped show new ways to bridge a standoff between rich and poor. "The announcement of a few weeks ago came in handy here," he said.

"This is a good document to pave the way to Paris," EU Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete told Reuters at the end of the talks about limiting more floods, desertification, heat waves and rising sea levels.

Some environmental groups, however, said the deal, reached at a tent city on a military base in the Peruvian capital, was far too weak.

"We went from weak to weaker to weakest," Samantha Smith of the WWF conservation group said of successive drafts at the Lima talks.

NEW STYLE

The idea of a U.N. deal with obligations for all nations marks a shift from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which obliges only the rich to cut emissions.

Christiana Figueres, the U.N.'s climate chief, said Lima found a new ways to define the obligations of rich and poor. "That is a very important breakthrough," she said.

"What we are seeing is a new form of international cooperation on climate change where all countries participate with a new set of rules," said Jennifer Morgan of the World Resources Institute think-tank.

The U.N. Climate Change Secretariat says that the combined pledges by all nations likely in Paris will be too weak to achieve a goal of limiting warming to an agreed goal of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

Under the Lima deal, national pledges will be added up in a report by Nov. 1, 2015, to assess their aggregate effect in slowing rising temperatures.

But, after opposition led by China, there will not be a full-blown review to compare each nation's level of ambition.

And the text lays out a vast range of options for the Paris accord, including the possibility of aiming for zero net global emissions by 2100 or earlier in a drastic shift from fossil fuels towards renewable energies such as wind and solar power.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle and Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Ralph Boulton and John Stonestreet)

Lima climate deal: what was agreed – and what wasn't
UN climate talks wrapped up in Peru with a modest agreement about the building blocks of a deal due to be agreed in Paris next year
Reuters The Guardian 15 Dec 14;

Greenhouse gas plans

All countries will be asked to submit plans for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, known as “Intended Nationally Determined Contributions,” or INDCs, to the United Nations by an informal deadline of 31 March 2015, as the core of a Paris deal.

But there will be few obligations to provide details and no review to compare each nation’s pledges – as had been demanded by the European Union – after China and other emerging nations refused.

The text says INDCs “may include” details such as base years and yearly targets, far weaker than a former draft that said nations “shall provide” such details.

INDCs will be published on the website of the UN climate change secretariat, which will prepare by 1 November 2015 a report of the overall climate effect of all the INDCs in slowing warming.

Who does what?

The text invites actions by all nations to combat warming, blurring a distinction in a 1992 climate convention that split the world into two camps of rich and poor – under which the rich had to lead the way.

Many emerging economies, such as India, insisted on that continued split. But the United States and other rich nations said the world had changed and that developing countries also had to curb their rising emissions.

The diplomatic formula encompassing the rival demands ended up in the text as: “Common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances.”

Finance

Donations to a Green Climate Fund, due to help developing nations cut their greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change, fractionally surpassed a UN goal of $10bn, helped by donations by Australia and Belgium.

Lima reiterated a goal for developed nations to mobilise $100bn a year, in public and private funds, in climate aid for developing nations by 2020.

Developing nations wanted rich nations to set a clear timetable for scaling up funds year by year. But a text merely “requested” that developed nations “enhance the available quantitative and qualitative elements of a pathway” towards 2020.

‘Elements’ of a long-term deal

The talks agreed on a 37-page document of “elements” that will form the basis of a negotiating text for Paris next year. But the range of options is very wide.

One option, for instance, is to set a long-term goal of a cut in greenhouse gas emissions to “net zero by 2050,” requiring a drastic shift from fossil fuels in coming years. Another long-term option for the same section would merely require “low-emission development strategies.”

Many developing nations want help to adapt to climate change, for instance helping farmers to grow drought- or flood-resistant food. One option, for instance, says: “Establish a global goal for adaptation” – another the opposite: “No global goal for adaptation.”

‘Loss and damage’
Developing countries vulnerable to extreme weather successfully won a mention of “loss and damage” – for instance, compensation for super typhoons – in the text, although the United States had pushed not to include it.

Lima deal represents a fundamental change in global climate regime
The agreement removes the longstanding division of the world into developed and developing countries and paves way for a model of unity
Michael Jacobs The Guardian 15 Dec 14;

It was the agreement that everyone wanted, yet no-one much liked. This year’s annual UN climate change conference in Lima, Peru, finally concluded in the early hours of Sunday morning, more than 24 hours after the scheduled close, after fierce argument in the final days.

Negotiators from 196 countries patched together a compromise which keeps the show on the road towards to a new global climate agreement in Paris next year, but in doing so left almost everyone unhappy with one element or another.

Many of the critics, however, have missed the point. The Lima deal is weak in many respects. But it also represents a fundamental breakthrough in the shape of the global climate regime.

The Lima conference had two goals. The first was to agree an outline text of the 2015 Paris agreement.

This was achieved – but only by creating a huge 37-page document which includes every possible option which countries may want to see in next year’s deal. Taking to heart the old maxim “why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?”, delegates parked the text early in the conference and did not attempt to negotiate between the options. That process has been left to the five sessions of talks scheduled for 2015, starting in February. Given the divergence between the positions included, it will be a huge task to make the draft fit for conclusion in Paris in December.

The second goal was to agree the rules under which countries must bring forward their national commitments – or in the jargon, ‘intended nationally determined contributions’ (INDCs) – during 2015.

Here the compromises were sharply felt. Developing countries wanted these contributions to include plans for adaptation to climate change as well as emissions cuts, and for developed countries to include financial support for poorer nations. They got no commitments to new money, and inclusion of adaptation plans will be optional, not compulsory. Developed countries wanted all countries to provide standardised information on their emissions targets and plans, to ensure transparency and comparability.

The key elements were agreed, but only in the form of guidance, not as requirements. The EU and the United States’ proposal that countries’ plans be subject to some kind of assessment was dropped from the final text. But the aggregate effect of all countries’ plans will be calculated, allowing evaluation next year of whether the world has done enough to limit average global warming to the agreed goal of under 2C. (It will almost certainly have not.)

For many of its critics, particularly in the environmental movement, these compromises have made the Lima agreement too “bottom-up” in form. It gives countries too much latitude to make whatever commitments they want, relatively unconstrained by a common set of rules imposed “top down” by the agreement. Such critics worry that this will make it harder to get countries to cut emissions further when it becomes clear that their collective efforts are not enough, and may even allow some to use irregular accounting methods.

What the Lima agreement does do, however, is end the longstanding division of the world into only two kinds of countries, developed and developing. Ever since the original UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed in 1992, countries’ obligations have been defined according to their level of development in that year. The rich so-called ‘Annex 1’ countries have had compulsory obligations, while poorer ‘non-Annex 1’ countries have simply been required to make voluntary efforts.

Over the last twenty years that binary distinction has looked more and more obsolete, as the larger developing countries such as China and Brazil have emerged as economic superpowers and major emitters of greenhouse gases. For this reason, the developed world has long wanted to break down the “firewall” between the two historic groupings, and replace it with a form of differentiation between countries’ obligations more in keeping with the modern world. But the developing countries and China have insisted that it must remain.

No longer. The Lima agreement creates obligations on countries but makes no mention of the distinction between Annex 1 and non-Annex 1 groups. Rather, it uses a new phrase drawn from the recent agreement between the US and China, that countries’ responsibilities will be based on “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in light of different national circumstances.” The firewall has been breached.

In theory, the Lima agreement on INDCs does not determine the shape of the long-term Paris agreement. So there will no doubt be another fierce battle next year over this issue. But the vast majority of developing countries – including China and Brazil – are happy with the new regime. So it is impossible to imagine now the simple “two groupings” model of the past being restored. And those countries which opposed it know it. That was why the final two days in Lima were so fiercely fought.

The Lima conference has shown just how hard the negotiations in Paris next year will be, despite recent optimism about global progress. But one highly significant decision has effectively now been made. It paves the way towards an agreement which all countries, including the US and China, can sign.

Michael Jacobs is Visiting Professor in the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics