UN Climate Conference 2015: As Ministers Fly In To Paris The Hard Decisions Are Still To Come

Fairfax - Tom Arup & Peter Hannam

Representatives of NGOs wear elephant masks and hold banners at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. Photo: AP

Paris: Ministers from around the world, including Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, arrive in Paris this weekend facing an enormous task to finalise a new global agreement to tackle global warming. However there is a sense of optimism that solutions to some of the toughest disputes are starting to emerge.

The Paris talks are regarded by many observers as being in a better state than perhaps they might have been following the emergence of a draft version of the final agreement that had been reasonably pared back and delivered in good time. American actor Leonardo DiCaprio delivers a speech during a meeting of mayors from around the world at the Paris city hall on Saturday. The meeting coincided with the UN Climate Conference and carried an environmental theme.

American actor Leonardo DiCaprio delivers a speech during a meeting of mayors from around the world at the Paris city hall on Saturday. The meeting coincided with the UN Climate Conference and carried an environmental theme. Photo: Thierry Chesnot

But negotiators for a number of countries conceded many divisive topics – mostly centred around who should shoulder what amount of burden to tackle climate change – still remain unresolved and would require political intervention from ministers when they land.
Negotiators have worked hard since Tuesday to try hammer out some elements of the agreement before the draft text was handed over to the French organisers, which happened only an hour behind scheduled on Saturday – relatively punctual for United Nations climate talks.
France now officially takes over control of the negotiating process. From here the French – who are traditionally proud of their diplomatic acumen – will have to manage the cocktail of ministers, diplomats, business figures, non-government organisations and other players, in trying to find a path to a final agreement.
In a briefing on Saturday in Paris, the lead Chinese negotiator Su Wei struck a reasonably conciliatory tone about the state of the negotiations. But he said the work ahead would be arduous and several disagreements between the major players remained.
The potential pitfalls in the draft text – which has come back from more than 50 pages at the start of the summit to a bit over 20 – include:

• Climate funding to help poorer nations with climate change. Industrialised countries, including Australia, want to expand the donor base for this to include major emerging economies. But this has seen a pushback from many developing nations, though not all. The 2020 goal of $US100 billion ($136 billion) a year in aid from public and private sources is seen as the minimum annual target for post-2020.
• When and how emissions targets will be reviewed and assessed. There is a push on for five-yearly reviews starting early next decade from many countries, but India and others are resisting defiantly.
• Whether a goal of keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees from pre-industrial will be included in the agreement alongside a separate aim of a sub-two degree goal. The lower target is a major demand of small island nations, which is being backed by Australia after a trade-off deal. Again India, along with Saudi Arabia, are trying to block this.

A negotiator with the European Union delegation, who spoke to Fairfax Media on the condition of anonymity, said India remained the hardest obstacle to move, and were not going along with potential landing zones on the key division points.
Long-time observer of the climate talks, and deputy chief executive of the Climate Institute, Erwin Jackson, said the draft text included most of the ingredients of an outcome in Paris that could further boost global action on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
He said an ambitious agreement was achievable "but it is going to require strong political leadership from ministers when they arrive next week."
"Momentum in the real economy continues to grow and it is now up to ministers to find the compromises that will see Paris ramp-up the transition to a net zero emissions global economy," he said.

Links

• What we learnt during the first week of Paris talks
• Australia backs target of 1.5 degrees
• UN Climate Conference: full coverage

Messy Midway: Paris Draft Climate Deal Ready, Long Way To Go

Washington Post - Karl Ritter & Sylvie Corbet

Former US Vice President Al Gore poses for a photo with delegates during the”Action Day”at the COP21, United Nations Climate Change Conference, in Le Bourget north of Paris, Saturday, Dec. 5, 2015. President Francois Hollande is encouraging mayors of the world to get involved in fighting climate change and praising those that are already setting an example with low-emission buildings and public transport policies. (Associated Press)

LE BOURGET, France — Negotiators adopted a draft climate agreement Saturday that was cluttered with brackets and competing options, leaving ministers with the job of untangling key sticking points in what is envisioned to become a lasting, universal pact to fight global warming.
As the U.N. talks outside Paris reached their midway point, the 48-page draft agreement was sent along to environment and foreign ministers who will work on it next week.
“So let’s work,” French President Francois Hollande said in a speech Saturday. “It’s up to the ministers and officials of every government to remove options, find compromises and make decisions on the difficult issues without undermining the ambition” of the climate pact.
Many disagreements remain, almost all related to defining the obligations and expectations of rich and poor countries, as well as those who don’t fit neatly into either category. The draft had multiple options on that issue — everything from who should pay for a global transition to clean energy to what happens to countries that miss their targets to fight climate change.
One of the most radical proposals called for an “international tribunal of climate justice” to deal with wealthy countries that don’t fulfill their commitments. Rich nations are certain to reject that idea.
“We would have wished to be further along than we are at this point, but the text being forwarded so far reflects our key priorities,” said Maldives delegate Thoriq Ibrahim, who chairs an alliance of small island nations on the front lines of climate change.
Although 184 countries have already submitted national plans to reduce climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, how to anchor those pledges in a legally binding deal remains to be worked out.
Chief Chinese negotiator Su Wei told reporters Saturday that “all the provisions, starting from the preamble to the final clauses, would be legally binding.”
That contrasts with the U.S. position, which is for some parts to be legally binding, but not countries’ pledges to limit the greenhouse gas emissions. Binding emissions cuts would likely require the Obama administration to send the deal to the Republican-controlled Congress, where it would likely be struck down.
After the news conference, Su indicated the issue was still up for negotiation.
“We have to further discuss ... try to find some proper solution,” he said.
Jake Schmidt of the Natural Resource Defense Council, a New York-based environmental group, said the issue could be resolved by avoiding words like “shall” in key paragraphs about emissions targets.
The Paris accord is meant to be a turning point in the world’s efforts to fight climate change. Since they started in 1992, the U.N. talks have not been able to stop the rise in emissions, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, blamed for warming the planet.
Previous agreements only required rich countries to reduce their emissions. The new agreement would apply to all countries, but many developing nations are resisting language that would indicate a shift in responsibilities.
The U.S. and other developed countries have traditionally been the only ones expected to provide financing to help poor countries deal with rising seas and other impacts of climate change. They want the new agreement to expand the donor base to include the most advanced developing countries.
But major developing countries including India and China are pushing back, amid worries that wealthy countries are trying to dodge their responsibilities. The developing bloc says the parts of world that industrialized first — the U.S., Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand — have a historical duty to address climate change.
“There is an obligation on the part of the developed nations to provide finance and there is an entitlement on part of developing nations to receive funds for climate action,” Indian negotiator Susheel Kumar said. “We don’t want dilution of that paradigm.”

A Leaner Climate Proposal Emerges, Complete With Big Questions

New York Times - Coral Davenport

LE BOURGET, France — The new draft text of the United Nations climate accord was released Saturday, whittled from 50 pages to a surprisingly readable 21.
The biggest questions still remain: where the money will come from to allow poorer countries to power their growth through low-carbon energy, and how emissions will be monitored — and by whom.
The new document capped the first week of talks here, where 195 countries have been working to forge an agreement to lower carbon emissions and try to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. This version is the result of negotiations that began years ago, but took off with intensity when the international summit conference began on Monday.
In international legal documents like this, little words and phrases can have big consequences. In the case of the climate accord, perhaps the most crucial word is “shall.” In this forum, “shall” equals legally binding. So a great deal of the next week will be a showdown over “shalls.”
Developing economies want lots of “shalls” in the money section. In particular, they would like to see a clause saying that developed countries “shall” provide money for the developing world to adapt to climate change and transition to clean energy. That “shall” is a red alert for the United States, because it would legally commit developed countries, in an international legal forum, to writing checks to poor countries.
In the money section, the United States prefers the much softer “should.” This would lay out an expectation that rich countries will pay, but it would not come with legal teeth if they don’t.
The United States would also like to expand the pool of donor countries — it objects to a text that would require only “developed economies” to give money. That denotes a fairly small group of countries — mainly the United States, members of the European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia and a handful more. Those countries would like to see not just “developed economies” on the hook for giving money – they would like to see the more expansive language “countries in a position do so.” That would put larger developing countries like China and Brazil in the donor pool.
While the United States objects to “shalls” in the money section, it wants lots of “shalls” in the section on outside verification. It wants full legal force requiring countries to open up their industrial sectors to an outside review of how they record emissions. That’s where many developing economies would like to see the softer “should.”
Despite the differences on the table, negotiators said they saw common ground in sight. The Chinese negotiator Su Wei offered a metaphor for the process ahead. “When you cook a meal, you need all the materials and ingredients in the kitchen,” he said at a news briefing Saturday. “Everything must be there before you can make your meal. It’s the elements of Parisian cuisine. We have many ingredients, and we will emerge with a good meal.”

In War of the Temperatures, a Cease-Fire of Sorts

New York Times - Justin Gillis

A coal-fired steel factory in Hebei, China. Groups at the climate conference in France say that to achieve a goal of limiting the increase in global temperatures, politicians of the future will have to do a lot more on emissions. Credit Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

LE BOURGET, France — In the climate deal being put together here, every country gets to decide for itself how ambitious to be about cutting emissions, and how to put its goals into writing.
That means there is no standardization in the national pledges, and adding them all up to see exactly what they might accomplish is no small trick. Still, lots of think tanks have been working at it for weeks, and they have said how much they expect the deal to do for the climate if it is finalized.
The problem is that they do not agree.
Climate Interactive, an American group with ties to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, projects that by the end of the century, the deal would allow the planet to warm about 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 Fahrenheit) above the level that prevailed before the Industrial Revolution. That is an exceedingly worrisome number that would mean an extensive melting of the polar ice caps and a large rise in sea levels.
A coalition of European think tanks, operating under the name Climate Action Tracker, projects an increase of 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.9 Fahrenheit) under the deal — still pretty worrisome, but closer to the two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) that countries agreed five years ago would be a climatological red line.
Not surprisingly, the people running the climate conference like the lower number.
In carefully calibrated language, they have said that countries are doing enough at this conference, although they acknowledge that achieving their goals would require further action in coming years.
But if the more pessimistic forecasts are correct, one implication is that climate negotiators might be overestimating how much they have achieved.
What, exactly, is behind the so-called war of the temperatures?
The computer models that the groups are using incorporate pretty similar calculations on how sensitive the climate is to greenhouse gases. On the basic arithmetic of adding up the emissions reductions incorporated into the Paris pledges, the groups get fairly similar numbers.
Other factors are at work, as Kelly Levin and Taryn Fransen of the World Resources Institute explained on the organization’s website. Among the biggest issues dividing the groups are the assumptions they make about what will happen after 2030.
The groups getting low numbers assume that if emissions are falling in 2030 at the rate countries have promised, then that means a sweeping transformation of the energy system will be underway — and emissions will keep falling.
“We have made a call that we want to inform the people here, and the public, of what would be the consequences if this level of effort would be continued,” said Michiel Schaeffer, science director of Climate Analytics, one of the groups involved in the Climate Action Tracker analysis.
That may sound reasonable enough. But recently, experts have been warning about potential dead ends that could cause emissions reductions to stall in the 2030s.
One example would be a decision by the United States to rely too heavily on natural gas to meet its near-term emissions goals. The country might build a lot of gas power plants and pipelines that would still be in use 15 years from now, and which would then be hard to shut down in favor of cleaner technologies.
Groups like Climate Interactive do not want to assume as much about what will happen after 2030. They point out that if emissions are really going to keep falling after that, it will be a result of hard political decisions that have yet to be made. Some of those include costly investments, like improvements in electric cars — or the needed technologies might not be in place by the 2030s.
“It is dangerous for our leaders to count on emissions cuts that have not been pledged as if they will somehow occur automatically when those cuts require tough negotiations, greater funding and technology transfer for developing nations, and big changes in public opinion,” said John D. Sterman, a professor of management at M.I.T. and one of the brains behind Climate Interactive. “Our leaders must not sugar coat the challenge we face just to paint Paris as a success.”
In the war of the temperatures, it turns out the groups have reached a cease-fire.
They have looked at each others’ work and come to a clear understanding of the factors dividing them. They have basically agreed to disagree about what should be reported as the most likely temperature consequence of the Paris deal.
They all agree about one thing, however: They say the deal coming together here is inadequate.
To meet the global community’s stated goal of limiting the temperature increase, the politicians of the future will have to do a lot more on emissions than the ones who turned up in Paris early this week to take credit for helping to save the planet, the groups have said.

Paris Climate Change Talks Yield First Draft Amid Air Of Optimism

The Guardian - Lenore Taylor & Suzanne Goldenberg in Paris

Country representatives and green groups say French summit is more cordial and efficient than Copenhagen five years ago

Ban Ki-moon delivers a speech during “action day” at the Paris climate change conference. Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/AFP/Getty Images

Negotiators paving the way for a global climate change agreement in Paris have cleared a major hurdle, producing a draft accord in record time and raising hopes that a full week of minister-led talks can now clinch a deal despite many sticking points.
No part of the deal has been finalised because in the end it is likely to be a tradeoff between developing countries’ demands – particularly for financing to help cope with the impacts of locked-in climate change – and wealthier nations’ insistence that over time all countries properly account for the progress they have made towards emission reduction goals.
And it remains littered with brackets – indicating areas of disagreement. But the document handed to the French on Saturday has refined 50 pages down to just over 20 and, unusually, was agreed on schedule, leaving a full week for ministers to reach agreement.
China’s chief climate negotiator, Su Wei, said: “It has laid a solid foundation for next week … like when we cook a meal you need to have all the seasonings and ingredients and recipes, but next week is the actual cooking.”

A giant whale sculpture next to the river Seine in Paris. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters

Senior negotiators and long-time observers believe there will be a way through the sticking points. “There is good news. This is only a basis for a negotiation … there are several disagreements that we need to talk to each other, to try to solve … but political will is there from all parties,” he said.
Non-government observers were also cautiously optimistic. Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace said progress was far better than at a similar point in the 2009 Copenhagen talks. “At this point in Copenhagen [in 2009] we were dealing with a 300-page text and a pervasive sense of despair. In Paris we’re down to a slim 21 pages and the atmosphere remains constructive. But that doesn’t guarantee a decent deal. Right now the oil-producing nations and the fossil fuel industry will be plotting how to crash these talks when ministers arrive next week.”
Laurence Tubiana, the French envoy for the talks, said: “We could have been better, we could have been worse. The job is not done, we need to apply all intelligence, energy, willingness to compromise and all efforts to come to agreement. Nothing is decided until everything is decided.”
Liz Gallagher, project manager at the non-profit organisation E3G, said the first week of talks had seen “some movement among negotiation blocs, with the idea of north and south … becoming more nuanced”. India had been “better behaved than we expected them to be”, she said, but Saudi Arabia had been blocking the negotiations on several fronts. The Saudis had, for example, been trying to prevent any reference to the need to hold global warming at 1.5C.
The final draft agreement includes the options of holding temperature increases to 1.5C or “well below two degrees”; evidence, the US envoy, Todd Stern, said on Friday, of the emergence of “a high-ambition coalition”, that “includes many countries” but not all of the 195 countries in the talks.

Protesters walk past a gendarme outside the talks in Paris. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP

For the foreign minister of the tiny Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum, that goal is a matter of survival because some islands are already under water. “Put simply, I refuse to go home from Paris without being able to look my grandchildren in the eye and say I have a good deal for you.”
The Saudis have also been blocking the idea that the commitments countries have put on the table in Paris – covering emission reductions between 2020 and 2030 – should be reviewed before that period commences, and potentially increased. The Climate Action Tracker website has calculated those commitments put the world on track for warming of at least 2.7C. Differences on this issue between China and the US were central to the breakdown of the Copenhagen talks six years ago, but in Paris China is taking a softer approach. “We need to enhance the transparency system … it is very important to build trust,” Su said.
There is intense division over how the agreement is worded, in a way that would bind rich countries to specific continued investments, beyond the deal struck in Copenhagen for $100bn (£66bn) a year in public and private money to flow by 2020. (An OECD review said around $60bn was already committed, but poor countries dispute the calculations). And there are also divisions over suggestions big developing countries should join rich countries to make financial contributions to help poor countries reduce their emissions and cope with the impacts of locked-in climate change.

Former governor of California and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers a speech to the French parliament. Photograph: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images

Stern told reporters some countries had “over-read” the issue. He said it was about recognising what was already happening – China pledged US$3.1bn in support to developing countries, when President Xi Jinping met President Obama at the White House this year – rather than introducing any requirement, he said.
A group of 10 Democratic US senators reassured countries at the climate meeting on Saturday they “had Barack Obama’s back” and would defend his agenda in a Republican-controlled Congress. The 10 were the first wave of what is anticipated to be a strong US presence at the Paris meeting, designed to counter Republican attempts to sink Obama’s climate plan. Congress voted last week to repeal the main part of Obama’s plan, especially on rules limiting carbon emissions from power plants. But the Democrats said they would be prepared to defend Obama’s agenda in Congress, and push for stronger climate action.
“What you see here are people who are going to protect what the president is putting on the table here in Paris as a promise from the American people to the world,” Ed Markey, a Democrat senator from Massachusetts, told a press conference. “We are going to back up the president every step of the way.”
Despite the multiple disagreements in Paris, Christiana Figueres, the executive secretary of the UN convention on climate change, said the talks were “where we thought they could be”. Officially Saturday is “high level action day” in Paris, the culmination of a process to get emission reduction commitments from bodies other than governments. There have been more than 10,000 such pledges from businesses, local authorities, non government groups and individuals.
Among those attending the event are the former US vice president Al Gore, the former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, the actor-cum-politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the actor Sean Penn.

Links

• Democratic senators say they 'will not back down'
• Developing countries angry over financial plan
• Julie Bishop chided for 'joke' about rising seas flooding Marshall Islands
• Paris talks creep towards agreement in final week, but deal could be 'watered down'

COP21: Climate Delegates Agree Draft Deal Text

BBC - Matt McGrath


Delegates at a UN climate conference in Paris have approved a draft text they hope will form the basis of an agreement to curb global carbon emissions.
The 48-page document will be discussed by ministers on Monday.
They will try to arrive at a comprehensive settlement by the end of next week.
The French climate ambassador warned that major political differences still needed to be resolved.
Delegates from 195 countries worked through the night at the conference centre in Le Bourget, conscious of a midday Saturday deadline imposed by the French presidency of this meeting.
The weighty document will now go forward to ministers who will have to take the many political decisions still required, if the text is to be turned into a long-term agreement.
"Nothing has been decided and nothing will be left behind," said French climate ambassador Laurence Tubiana.
"This text marks the will of all to reach an agreement. We are not at the end of the route. Major political issues are yet to be resolved," she warned. Tricky decisions
Many delegates were relieved that they had at least reached this point, as it marks a critical point after four years of negotiations.
The document lays out a range of options for ministers on what the long-term goal of the deal should be, as well as the scale and the methods of raising climate finance for poorer nations.
Among the many tricky issues they will have to deal with is differentiation: many countries are reluctant to change the way that nations are divided into developed and developing, based on where they were in 1992, when the UN Convention was signed.
Many richer countries want this to change, and want a greater number of emerging economies to take on emissions reduction targets and become climate finance donors.
South Africa's climate ambassador struck a note of warning on this issue.

On Friday, mayors from around the world took part in an event as part of the COP21 summit. Image copyright EPA

"The Paris outcome must be under the convention and in accordance with its principles and provisions and must not rewrite or re-interpret its decisions," said Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko, who speaks on behalf of more than 130 developing nations.
Negotiators had hoped to be much further forward at the end of the week. They started out with a 50-page document and by Friday had reduced it to 36 pages of text.
"We now need to summon the political will needed to make the hard decisions required for an effective and durable agreement that protects the most vulnerable among us," said Thoriq Ibrahim of the Maldives and Chair of the Alliance of Small Island States.
Many countries had reservations about the Friday document, so what has now been agreed contains these concerns added as an annex - pushing the document to 48 pages.
There are worries that far too much has been left to ministers to agree, and that in an effort to reach a deal, too many compromises will be made.
"We're hoping that in the rush to the end, ministers do not trade ambition for expediency, and remain true to the science," warned Tasneem Essop from WWF.