Paris climate change deal: new draft cuts through key sticking points

egotiators in Paris are within reach of a global agreement to curb greenhouse emissions to 2030 and beyond, with the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, saying the meeting was “extremely close to the finishing line” as he presented a draft text that cut through many key sticking points. After reading the draft and chairing a meeting of the so-called “umbrella group” of developed nations, the Australian foreign minister, Julie Bishop, said she thought the text was “about 80% there”.

“There’s a lot of work still to be done, particularly on the issue of climate finance and on the issue of the developing/developed country divide … but I remain hopeful that we will secure an agreement,” she said.

Leading non-government observers agreed the talks were finally making headway.

Jennifer Morgan, the global director of the climate programme at the World Resources Institute, said there had been “very significant progress”.

But Fabius said the negotiations would overrun by a day and finish on Saturday, according to a UN spokesman. UN climate talks are notorious for overrunning, with one meeting in Durban in 2011 rolling into the early hours of Sunday, and after talks through the early hours here in Paris, the hosts have admitted the summit will overrun.

The marathon talks have become an exercise in diplomatic attrition, with Fabius giving countries two hours to look at the latest draft before yet another less formal meeting – known as an indaba, a Zulu word for meeting – beginning at 11.30pm Paris time.

He said this all-night session would be an “indaba of solutions” and negotiators would be given 30 to 45 minutes in a corner of the room to settle any impasse.

It comes after negotiators met through Wednesday night in two indabas, allowing all countries to once again vent their concerns.

“I hope I will present a final text tomorrow … it will allow us to complete the final lap,” Fabius said before the negotiating teams began poring over the text, in which the French had narrowed options and chosen compromise solutions. “We must do this and we can do this … I think, dear friends, that we will make it.”

On Wednesday night, each indaba had seats for about 80 negotiators, with more crowding in at the back. One, chaired by Fabius, met until 5am on Thursday. A second, chaired by the Peruvian environment minister, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, met until 8am.

According to veteran negotiators, the indabas had made sure every country felt their views had been heard.

“They spend about 80% of their time repeating their previous positions, maybe 10% outlining new positions and only about 10% of the time compromising,” said a negotiator who took part in one of the meetings.

The US secretary of state, John Kerry, turned up at the Fabius-chaired meeting at about 2am on Wednesday and had what observers described as an “animated” discussion with the US climate change envoy, Todd Stern, at the back of the room for about 20 minutes, possibly about separate informal talks on the issue of “loss and damage” – the idea that the agreement should recognise some countries will suffer irreparable harm from climate change.

The US is insistent any words about loss and damage should not suggest liability or compensation or open any possibility of legal action against US companies.

Australia was represented by officials on Wednesday night. Bishop was on call but spent the night hosting a dinner for Australian business and environmental leaders attending the conference.

The French presidency and the experts from the UN then spent Thursday once again carefully paring back the many areas of disagreement to further distil the big political issues it is hoped will form the basis of the final trade-off deal.

A group called Parisagreement.org has analysed this task by counting the numbers of brackets – indicating disagreement. When the Paris meeting began there were 1,609 sets of brackets. In the Wednesday night text there were 361. By Thursday night, it was down to 50.

The key issues of dispute have been honed since the talks began 11 days ago:

• Vulnerable island states and many countries who support the idea of an ambitious agreement are insisting it clearly recognise that climate science requires global warming to eventually be contained below 1.5C. Several ministers told Wednesday night’s indabas that they would not go home with a vague “expression of sympathy” on the issue. The latest draft seeks to resolve this issue, saying countries will “hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C, recognising that this would significantly reduce risks and impacts of climate change”. This is presented as the final option.

• Developing countries are insisting the agreement is clear about the funding they might receive to help reduce emissions and cope with locked-in climate change, with the $100bn a year in public and private finance now promised by 2020 as minimum for post-2020 funding. The latest draft still contains different wording about how ambitious the funding aim should be.

• Developed countries, including the US and Australia, and vulnerable countries are insisting the agreement make it clear that eventually all countries will need to account for and report their emissions in similar ways, with regular reviews of national commitments. Developing countries want to keep the division set up in the 1992 framework climate convention between the requirements of rich and poor nations. This is not yet resolved.

• The dispute over loss and damage is also unresolved.

The draft text proposes a global stocktake in 2019 – before the new greenhouse gas reduction pledges covering the period between 2020 and 2030 begin, and then national reviews in 2020 for countries with a 2025 target and the option of reviews for those with a 2030 target.

Australia has promised to cut emissions by between 26% and 28% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels.

The deputy chief executive of the Climate Institute, Erwin Jackson, said the conference was “on the cusp of getting the best possible outcome … but some key political issues remain to be resolved”.

Fonte: The Guardian