Delegates gearing up for deal on emissions
Print Edition
UN climate negotiators will meet today for their last session ahead of a major conference in Paris to hammer out the details of what could be the most ambitious agreement yet to fight global warming.
Delegates at the weeklong talks in Bonn, Germany, are expected to begin editing a 20-page draft that still contains multiple options on how to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions scientists say are warming the planet.
Some 150 countries — including top emitters China, the United States, the European Union and India — have already made voluntary pledges to cut or curb their emissions after 2020, when the deal is supposed to take effect.
But several analyses show those pledges won’t be enough to prevent levels of warming many consider dangerous, so a key element of the Paris deal would be a mechanism to raise those commitments over time.
“We don’t want to make a picture, we want to make a movie,” Netherlands climate envoy Michel Rentenaar said, insisting that the Paris agreement cannot freeze the current level of ambition on climate action.
The UN talks have made significant strides since a 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen failed to live up to expectations. For the first time all countries now agree they need to act against climate change, which scientists say is transforming the planet through melting glaciers, rising sea levels, intensifying heat waves and warmer, more acidic oceans.
Though major sticking points remain, including how to spell out the different responsibilities of nations at various stages of development, rich and poor countries have moved closer in recent years.
“We have gone very far from the Copenhagen atmosphere,” said Pa Ousman Jarju, Gambia’s environment minister.
As always in the UN talks, which are based on consensus, there’s a risk a handful of countries block progress, he said. It would be a major setback if some countries reject the draft in Bonn, leaving negotiators little time to come up with a new one before Paris.
Several delegates said they didn’t expect that to happen, though they said that they couldn’t rule it out.
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