Deals at Climate Meeting Advance Global Effort
By DAVID JOLLY
United Nations climate talks ended Saturday with a pair of last-minute
deals keeping alive the hope that a global effort can ward off a ruinous
rise in temperatures.
Deals at Climate Meeting Advance Global Effort
By DAVID JOLLY
Published: November 23, 2013
WARSAW — Two weeks of United Nations
climate talks ended Saturday with a pair of last-minute deals keeping
alive the hope that a global effort can ward off a ruinous rise in
temperatures.
Delegates agreed to the broad outlines of a proposed system for pledging
emissions cuts and gave their support for a new treaty mechanism to
tackle the human cost of rising seas, floods, stronger storms and other
expected effects of global warming.
The measures added momentum to the talks as United Nations members look
toward a 2015 conference in Paris to replace the moribund Kyoto
Protocol.
“I think this is what they needed to move the ball forward,” said
Jennifer Morgan, director of the climate and energy program at the World
Resources Institute, “even if you can’t say that it provided a lot of
new ambition.”
The conference, known as the 19th annual meeting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
got underway two weeks ago in the shadow of the giant Philippine
typhoon. The talks were attended by more than 10,000 people, including
national delegations, journalists, advocates and, for the first time,
business leaders.
The death and destruction brought by the Philippine storm helped to highlight the question of “climate justice.”
Final agreement on Saturday was held up by a thorny dispute over a
proposal by developing nations for the creation of a “loss and damage
mechanism” under the treaty. The United States, the European Union and
other developed nations opposed the measure, fearing new financial
claims.
Peace was restored when the parties papered over their differences,
agreeing with the United States to nest the new instrument under an
existing part of the treaty dealing with adapting to climate change, but
saying they would review its status in 2016. Mohamed Adow, an activist
with Christian Aid, said the deal showed that “countries have accepted
the reality” of the effects of climate change, but that “they seem
unwilling to take concrete actions to reduce the severity of these
impacts.”
René Orellana of the Bolivian delegation, said: “It’s important that the
loss and damage structure has finally been created. There’s a baby now,
and we have to give him enough time to grow.”
Mr. Orellana said the agreement would eventually grow to encompass
things like technology transfer, capacity building and migration.
The United States hailed the agreement on calculating emissions
reductions, which was along lines proposed by Todd S. Stern, President
Obama’s climate envoy. Mr. Stern had called for each nation to make a
public offer early enough to be evaluated for the Paris summit meeting.
He argued that peer pressure was the best hope for concerted action
after the 2009 Copenhagen meeting showed a binding top-down approach
could not succeed at the international level.
Conflicts between rich nations, led by the United States and European
Union, and developing nations, led by China, India and Brazil, had
stalled progress and threatened to scuttle the conference altogether.
Negotiations ended a full day later than originally planned and
delegates, who had gone days with little sleep, were nodding exhaustedly
in their seats well before the end of the day on Saturday.
The language grew heated at times by diplomatic standards, with Mr.
Stern on Saturday reminding China that it had agreed two years ago that
climate action would be “applicable to all parties,” and expressing
surprise “that China would be assuming no commitments under the future
agreement.” Lead negotiators eventually worked out compromise language —
changing the word “commitments” to “contributions” — for 2015 to allow
some wiggle room.
The deal Saturday comes less than a year before a “climate summit”
of leaders called by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon for
September in New York, where world leaders will be asked to show
progress on cutting emissions in the full glare of the United States and
the world news media.
Despite relief that a Copenhagen-type failure was averted, treaty
members remain far from any serious, concerted action to cut emissions.
And developing nations complained that promises of financial help remain
unmet.
COPY http://international.nytimes.com/
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