Global climate deal in sight though finance, timing gaps remain

“In other words, it’s time to come to an agreement”, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told delegates on Thursday as he announced the new draft.

PARIS Exhausted climate negotiators from 195 nations sought ways on Thursday to strengthen a planned global agreement to combat global warming, and argued over who should pay billions of dollars to help developing nations meet those goals.

As all-night talks returned to disputes that have festered for more than two decades, French President Francois Hollande said yesterday there were “still difficulties” in the climate talks in Paris, especially on financing.

“I think, dear friends, that we will make it”, he said.

The European Union, Australia, U.S., Japan, New Zealand, Kazakhstan, Norway, Russia and Ukraine also shared this same fossil nod – now a much expected daily announcement at COP summits, that’s been in place for years.

India has however been pushed into a corner with a rising crescendo for capping the average global temperature rise at 1.5°C.

The revised text was the result of a series of all-night discussions which ended as late (or early) as 8am on Thursday morning.

“All countries need to close the gap to emissions on the target as soon as possible, so by 2020 we can work harder at reaching more ambitious goals for 2030”.

On top of that, Dr Peters says progress on carbon, capture and storage technology has been slow – and there are land use questions given BECCS would be competing with food crops and ecosystems for use of arable land and water supplies.

Creating some sense of goodwill the group then broke into two less-formal “Indabas”, which are meetings based on a traditional Zulu system where one person does the talking.

On Wednesday night each indaba had seats for about 80 negotiators, with more crowding in at the back. Bishop was on call but spent the night hosting a dinner for Australian business and environmental leaders attending the conference. However, there was one major exception.

The Paris Climate Conference began with hope and excitement as heads of state flew in to deliver strong messages on their countries’ commitments to take urgent action to address climate change. These nations have to decide who will foot the bill for assisting in mitigation for developing countries, and the U.N.as a whole isn’t exactly sure who should do it. “We will not sign off on any agreement that represents a certain extinction of our people”, the representative said.

“Developing countries should not feel fearful of a review”. The disadvantage is that they take a long time.

This may prove to have been a good idea.

That draft suggested compromises were emerging in some sections. Mr Bishop went straight from the Umbrella Group to this meeting.

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. He said the biggest political issues still need to be resolved including transparency, finance and loss and damage.

One of the biggest potential deal-busters remains money.

Bowing to a demand of developing countries, rich nations will mobilise $100 billion (92 billion euros) to help them cope with the cost of climate change.

By the end of October, 146 countries had submitted national climate plans on curbing emissions that are expected to form the cornerstone of a binding, global treaty on climate change. “We didn’t come to Paris to build a ceiling that contains all that we ever hope to do”, he said.

“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.

However, scientific analyses show the emissions targets that more than 180 countries have presented won’t be enough to limit warming even to 2 degrees C. The draft invited governments to “update” their emissions targets every five years, but didn’t require them to improve them.

Spooner said they have been disappointed in much of the news being relayed from inside the negotiating rooms, including about the removal of all human rights language from the draft agreement.