Amid disputes, critical Paris climate talks run over

Xi said the two nations “must strengthen coordination with all parties and work together to ensure the Paris climate summit reaches an accord as scheduled”, according to state television.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, shows off a bouquet which he received for his birthday from India’s Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, right, following a meeting on the sidelines of the COP 21 United Nations conference on climate change, in Le Bourget, on the outskirts of Paris on Friday Dec. 11, 2015. He wouldn’t elaborate on which issues.

But the biggest disputes over funding the climate fight – worth trillions of dollars over the decades to come – remain as potential deal-breakers in a draft accord released on Thursday night. Though current proposed text sticks with the target agreed at a previous climate conference of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 2 degrees Celsius (3.8 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, it also says countries should “pursue efforts” to hit the more ambitious goal of 1.5 degrees (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). “I’m optimistic”, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters accompanied by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The UN chief said there are still several outstanding issues, such as differentiation, the level of ambition and climate financing, but that thanks to many years of negotiations the parties already have “very good solutions”.

World leaders have billed the Paris talks as the last chance to avert disastrous climate change like increasingly severe drought, floods and storms, as well as rising seas.

However, some analysts say that more cooperation between the nations is needed and have warned that Paris could could become another failure like the one experienced in 2009 during the COP15 in Copenhagen.

“This wants consensus”, said Michael Jacobs, an economist using the Brand New Climate Market job.

“We would rather they take their time and were patient with the right deal than rush it and get a breakdown”, Sam Barratt of advocacy group Avaaz told the wire service.

The response hinted at the possible emergence of new battle lines that could characterize a post-Paris world – one in which countries embrace strong temperature goals like 1.5 degrees Celsius but stay vaguer about how to get there, and carbon-calculating scientists point out the inconsistencies. “Getting them to agree on the future of the planet and a deal on climate change is probably one of the toughest pieces of negotiation they’ll ever get involved in”. Some delegates said a new draft accord presented late Thursday by Fabius allowed rich nations to shift the responsibility to the developing world.

De Brum did not name the nations that were trying to weaken the text, although The Guardian as well as climate activists familiar with the negotiations going on behind closed doors have reported that they were Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Russian Federation, plus China, India and Malaysia.

The primary remaining issue is the balance between scaled up-though uncertain-foreign aid demands by developing countries and increasing pressure on rapidly developing nations to cut emissions as quickly as possible.

‘Assuming the deal does go through, this will be the first time in history at which virtually every country has committed to restraining its emissions of greenhouse gases, ‘ said Richard Black, director of the London-based Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.

“We can not just switch overnight … and go to renewables”, he said, on a coffee break between meetings at 1:30 a.m. “If you remove differentiation you create very serious problems for developing countries”.

“… rapid reductions thereafter towards reaching greenhouse gas emissions neutrality in the second half of the century…”

Setting realistic price for carbon – by far the most effective economic tool to curb emissions – is not in the draft agreement, even though this would do more than anything to accelerate a global switch to clean technologies.

But a bloc of nations including India and China is resisting those efforts, saying wealthy nations including the U.S., Japan and European countries have more historical responsibility because they have polluted the atmosphere for much longer.

India stuck to its demand that developed countries like the United States should shoulder more of the cost that countries face in adapting to the effects of climate change.