Climate pact blueprint adopted in Geneva

Channel NewsAsia 13 Feb 15;

GENEVA: Negotiators in Geneva adopted a climate blueprint on Friday (Feb 13), a symbolic milestone in the fraught UN process that must culminate in a universal pact in Paris in December.

Assembled over the past six days, the 86-page draft plan for limiting man-made global warming was gavelled through at the close of six days of talks, prompting applause from delegates.

"The task of this session has been achieved," UN climate chief Christiana Figueres told reporters ahead of the closing. "We have a text today ..., the formal negotiating text that will be the basis for negotiations for the next few months until we get to Paris", where the final pact will be adopted.

Ever since the 2009 Copenhagen conference failed to deliver a world agreement, the 195 nations gathered under the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been working on a new project for adoption by the end of this year.

Set to be signed at the November 30-December 11 UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris, the pact must enter into force by 2020 to further the UN goal of limiting warming to 2°C (3.6°F) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Scientists warn that at current greenhouse gas emission trends, Earth is on track for double that, or more - a recipe for catastrophic droughts, storms, floods and rising sea levels.

Negotiators emerged from the last COP in Lima last December, with a hard-fought framework text that remained hotly contested.

The February 8-13 Geneva talks, one of three special sessions added to this year's official UN climate agenda, was tasked with "streamlining" the Lima document. Instead, the meeting's mandate was changed early on to seeking universal endorsement of the text, which more than doubled since Sunday until all countries were satisfied their views were included.

The process was widely hailed for creating a sense of common purpose and goodwill in a text with universal buy-in. But it also yielded a vast document listing a variety of alternative approaches on most issues - often reflecting country positions that diametrically oppose one another.

And that means hard choices will have to be made in the months to come, starting with the next negotiating round in Bonn in June. "We have now agreed on a negotiating text. It provides us with the basis for moving forward," Elina Bardram, head of the EU delegation, told AFP.

But she added: "We would have wished for more advancement. The introduction of missing elements in the text is an achievement, but it does mean that the tough negotiations lie ahead of us and we are running out of time. We need a step change between now and Paris."

OPTIONS FROM A TO Z

"All the crunch issues are still on the table," added to Climate Action Network spokeswoman Alix Mazounie. "We have options going from A to Z".

At the very core of the pact, countries remain deeply divided on the issue of "differentiation" - how to share responsibility for emissions cuts between rich and poor nations. Developing countries also want their developed counterparts to commit to long-term climate financing, and insist on compensation for climate-change induced losses and damage suffered.

"I don't think there's any doubt that the negotiations are going to get more difficult," said veteran observer Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The first step before you can get to addressing those is to have a common picture of what the agreement is going to look like in terms of what the outline is, what the elements are in it. They have it now."

- AFP/ec

Geneva talks: countries agree draft text for deal to fight climate change
Delegates from almost 200 countries adopt 86-page draft as basis for negotiations on deal to be agreed at Paris climate summit
Reuters The Guardian 13 Feb 15;

Almost 200 countries agreed a draft text for a deal to fight climate change on Friday, but put off hard choices about narrowing down a vast range of options for limiting a damaging rise in temperatures.

Government delegates adopted the 86-page draft as the basis for negotiations on the deal due to be agreed later this year.

But the document includes radically varying proposals for slowing climate change – one foresees a phase-out of net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, for instance, while another seeks a peak of emissions “as soon as possible”.

“Although it has become longer, countries are now fully aware of each other’s positions,” said Christiana Figueres, the head of the UN climate change secretariat, referring to an earlier 38-page document which formed the basis of discussions.

Negotiators had to agree an official text in Geneva to meet a UN requirement that it is in place six months before a summit in Paris starting in November 2015.

Figueres said the long text would make the next negotiating session in June “a little bit more difficult”.

Delegates praised a positive mood at what are often fractious talks about sharing out the burden of curbing greenhouse gases among nations as diverse as China and the United States, Opec states or sub-Saharan African nations.

The European Union said negotiators should have started the harder task of streamlining the text. “We have lost an opportunity for progress,” said Elina Bardram, head of the European Commission delegation.

Activists said it was positive that all views were present in the draft text, even ideas such as a Bolivian demand for an International Climate Justice Tribunal for countries that fail to keep pledges for action.

“Everything in Geneva has set us up for success at Paris,” said Julie-Anne Richards of the Climate Justice Programme. She said Geneva contrasted with many UN sessions that can “feel like pulling teeth ... painful and hard to get things done”.

Last year was the warmest on record and the UN panel of climate scientists says man-made climate change is already visible in more heat extremes, downpours and rising sea levels as ice melts from the Alps to the Andes.

“The 2015 climate negotiations are off to a promising start,” said Jennifer Morgan, head of the climate programme at the World Resources Institute think-tank. “Much hard work remains.”