UN waiting for just 11 pledges on climate change
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SOME are at war, others recovering from natural disasters and some are simply ideologically opposed to the climate deal taking shape in United Nations talks outside Paris.
Only 11 countries haven’t submitted pledges for the envisioned agreement, including conflict-ridden Syria, reclusive North Korea and socialist Latin American countries who say it’s up to the West to clean up the world’s carbon pollution.
“Those who caused the problem need to solve the problem,” said Paul Oquist, Nicaragua’s United States-born climate envoy.
UN officials said they have received pledges covering 184 of the 195 countries that are parties to the convention on climate change, representing nearly all of the world’s carbon emissions. (The UN counts the European Union as a separate party in addition to its 28 members so the total number of parties is 196).
Even though the proposed targets collectively don’t add up to what scientists say is needed to avoid dangerous levels of warming, the fact that so many countries, including some of the poorest, have made pledges represents a sea-change in the UN talks, which previously only asked rich countries to take action against climate change.
Nicaragua is among the holdouts. While rapidly expanding renewable energy at home, it refuses to submit a target in the talks, arguing that the current approach of letting countries decide themselves how much to cut climate-warming carbon emissions won’t work.
“The approach that will work is historic responsibility,” Oquist told The Associated Press, calling for a system that would compel rich nations that have polluted the atmosphere since the industrial revolution to make much deeper cuts than they have promised so far.
Others have skipped the climate pledges for different reasons.
North Korea doesn’t actively participate in the climate talks, Syria is in the midst of a civil war, Libya remains violent and unstable after the uprising against dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, and Nepal, normally a keen participant in the UN climate talks, is recovering from a powerful earthquake earlier this year.
“Yes, there are a few countries left,” said UN Assistant Secretary-General Janos Pasztor.
“Some of them are in war situations, others, for whatever reasons, have not been able to complete their work.”
UN agencies have helped dozens of developing countries prepare their action plans. Of the more than 40 countries getting help from the UN Development Program, only East Timor wasn’t able to get its pledge in on time.
The biggest countries not to present pledges are Uzbekistan and Venezuela.
On Thursday, Venezuela’s minister of eco-socialism, Guillermo Barreto, said the country is withholding its pledge until it knows what commitments wealthy countries will make.
“We reserve our right to submit it after we know how will be the outcome of this conference,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Paris talks.
The other countries that haven’t presented pledges are Panama, St Kitts and Nevis and Tonga, UN officials said.
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