The draft text of the agreement had shrunk from 48 pages to 27, and the number of bracketed sections – which signal disagreement between the negotiators from 195 countries – had fallen from 1,609 at the outset to 50 as of Thursday night.
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Thursday’s draft also sets greenhouse-gas neutrality as a goal for the second half of this century.
Previous drafts included stronger options with more specific timeframes. The earnest, exhausted negotiators can nearly taste it. They are working through the night – in fact several nights, because the summit will now run over – to land it. AFP news agency also cited an unnamed source at the French Presidency of the climate talks who said that the much anticipated climate change deal will “be presented Saturday morning for adoption midday”. That’s why everyone from U.S. President Barack Obama to Russian President Vladimir Putin to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to German Chancellor Angela Merkel gathered in the French capital for the conference’s kickoff.
Protests are planned across Paris on Saturday, with thousands of red tulips to be given out by civil groups to represent red lines they say should not be crossed, and a rally under the Eiffel Tower when a deal is reached. But countries remain at odds on critical issues.
The White House has yet to mention to conversation, and Beijing did not comment on what was said during the phone call.
“Now, the first and most important priority in tackling this injustice has to be to address climate change itself”.
The director of the International Organization for Migration, William Lacy Swing, said the planet is seeing more forced migration today than any time since World War II, and seeing what he called “unprecedented anti-immigration sentiment”.
“There is still work to do”, he said.
“The issue of the long term goal is one of the key issues”, Clausen said.
The Paris conference is the 21st time world governments are meeting to seek a joint solution to climate change.
Saudi Arabia said it would resist language in the draft calling for a rise in global temperatures to be limited to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.
This year that had been increasingly recognised as a “false tension”, he said.
China, the world’s biggest carbon polluter, has pledged to peak its emissions “by approximately 2030 or sooner”.
The French capital is now hosting the COP21, which was initially scheduled to end on Friday.
India, which has led demands for richer countries to take a bigger share, offered conditional support for a 1.5°C target if developed nations accepted bigger emissions cuts.
The Republicans appear to be one of the only political parties in control of a legislature in the industrialized world to espouse the contrarian view on 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.
He said that East Timor had to spend a lot on repairing damage caused by disasters related to climate change, especially to roads.
Nearby, a pyramid of boxes and speakers broadcast voices recorded by activist group Avaaz.
But industrialised economies, such as the United States and European Union, want the new text to recognise that the world has moved on significantly since the UN’s climate convention was drawn up more than 20 years ago.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry zipped in and out of meetings on his fifth straight day in France trying to iron out differences with developing countries such as India.
He and Javadekar didn’t elaborate on differences in their positions. And Chris Joyce says a deal seems close.
Mr Kerry would not be drawn on the obstacles, as he went off to meet India’s environment minister.
Wealthy nations insist the firewall between rich and poor countries must go – all must fight global warming.
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“There are only a few open questions which remain”, said Christoph Bals of NGO Germanwatch. “It’s going well. The French are allowing everyone to have their say”, he said. The new draft said other countries could join the donor base “on a voluntary, complementary basis”. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the negotiations.
