In overtime, UN climate talks head for watered-down deal in Lima

[Buster's Uncle]

In overtime, UN climate talks head for watered-down deal in Lima
Reuters
By Alister Doyle and Valerie Volcovici  7 hours ago



LIMA (Reuters) - United Nations climate talks, which ran on into a an extra day on Saturday, are heading for a watered-down deal on limiting global warming, leaving many of the toughest issues for next year's Paris summit.

Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, hosting the talks, told delegates that a new text on Saturday morning to try to break impasses was not perfect, but reflected common ground.

Rich and poor nations were at odds after two weeks of talks in Peru over how to share the burden of curbing rising world emissions and how to raise a promised $100 billion a year by 2020 to help the poor cope with a warmer world.

Lima is meant to establish the building blocks of a new global deal to limit climate change to be agreed at a U.N. summit in Paris in December 2015, but many of the most contentious issues remain to be decided.

"We are pushing the big things to Paris," one delegate said on Saturday in a break in the talks on how to avert more floods, heat waves, droughts and rising seas.

China, the biggest greenhouse gas emitter, has resisted any scrutiny of its policy to cap its emissions by around 2030, delegates said, despite hopes of more openness after a pact last month with the United States to limit warming. [ID:nL3N0T2643]

"This is not in the spirit of the momentum that was offered by the pledge between the United States and China," Jennifer Morgan, of the World Resources Institute think-tank, said of China's position.

The new draft text expressed "grave concern" that all promises to fight climate change were too lax to reach a goal of limiting global warming to an agreed goal of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times.

It laid out detailed ways for nations to submit their domestic plans for fighting climate change beyond 2020 to the United Nations, by an informal deadline of March 31, 2015 to help lay the groundwork for a Paris accord.

It dropped a key demand by many developing nations to discuss compensation for loss and damage from climate change, such as from typhoons or rising sea levels.

(Reporting By Alister Doyle. Editing by Jane Merriman)


http://news.yahoo.com/overtime-u-n-climate-talks-head-watered-down-090452563.html

[Buster's Uncle]

UN climate talks deadlocked over scope of pledges
Associated Press
By KARL RITTER and FRANK BAJAK  38 minutes ago



Activists perform as heads of state, from left, President Barack Obama, Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper, China's President Xi Jinping, India's Narendra Modi, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the Climate Change Conference COP20 in Lima Peru, Friday, Dec. 12, 2014. The boat's sign reads in Spanish "Leave behind emissions. Climatic agreement." Delegates from more than 190 countries are meeting in Lima to work on drafts for a global climate deal that is supposed to be adopted next year in Paris. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)



LIMA, Peru (AP) — U.N. talks on a new global warming pact went into overtime Saturday as negotiators considered a draft agreement that environmentalists complain fails to clearly define the responsibilities countries are due to accept at a key summit in Paris next year.

The two-week meeting of representatives from more than 190 nations was scheduled to close Friday, but the yearly climate gatherings have rarely ended on time.

One of the most problematic issues left unresolved was deciding what information should go into the pledges due for a planned Paris agreement.

Rich countries insisted the pledges focus on efforts to control emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases and were resisting demands that they include promises of financing to help poor countries absorb the effects of climate change, which the U.N. environment agency last week estimated will amount to at least $200 billion annually by 2050.

Environmentalists complained that the draft that delegates were considering Saturday puts off decisions on financing.

"The current text is in my view the worst possible text," said Jan Kowalzig of Oxfam.



Former Vice President of the Unites States Al Gore, left, Former President of Mexico Felipe Calderon, second lef, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, center, Peru's President Ollanta Humala, second right, and Peru's Environment Minister and President of the COP, Manuel Pulgar Vidal, gather at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2014. Delegates from more than 190 countries are meeting in Lima, to work on drafts for a global climate deal that is supposed to be adopted next year in Paris. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)


Bolivia's chief negotiator, Rene Orellana, on Friday accused rich countries, including the United States, of "an attitude of shirking the responsibility of the provision of finance" and technology transfer to poor nations.

Meanwhile, top carbon polluter China and other major developing countries opposed plans for a review process that would allow the pledges to be compared against one another before Paris.

Their reluctance angered some delegates from countries on the front lines of climate change.

"We are shocked that some of our colleagues would want to avoid a process to hold their proposed targets up to the light," said Tony de Brum, the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, a Pacific nation of low-lying atolls at risk of being flooded by rising seas.

Expectations had been relatively low for the Lima talks.



AP10ThingsToSee - Members of the glaciology unit of Peru's national water authority walk on the Pastoruri glacier in Huaraz, Peru, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. The glaciology unit is studying the measurement of ice thickness. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)


"This agreement papers over the toughest decisions, which are still to be made in the 12 months ahead of Paris," said Paul Bledsoe, climate specialist at the German Marshall Fund think tank.

Though negotiating tactics always play a role, virtually all disputes in the U.N. talks reflect the wider issue of how to divide the burden of fixing the planetary warming that scientists say results from human activity, primarily the burning of oil, coal and natural gas.

Historically, Western nations are the biggest emitters. Currently, most CO2 emissions are coming from developing countries as they grow their economies and lift millions of people out of poverty.

During a brief stop in Lima on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said fixing the problem was "everyone's responsibility, because it's the net amount of carbon that matters, not each country's share."

According to the U.N.'s scientific panel on climate change, the world can pump out no more than about 1 trillion tons of carbon to have a likely chance of avoiding dangerous levels of warming. It already has spent more than half of that carbon budget as emissions continue to rise, driven by growth in China and other emerging economies.

Scientific reports say climate impacts are already happening and include rising sea levels, intensifying heat waves and shifts in weather patterns causing floods in some areas and droughts in others.

The U.N. weather agency said last week that 2014 could become the hottest year on record.


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