The delegates to the negotiations achieved great progress, Fabuis said. “It’s a whole lot of pomp, given the circumstances”.
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The 31-page draft, prepared by the French government after a long night of consultations with multiple nations, seems to resolve earlier disputes over how to monitor whether countries are achieving promised reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. On the issue of transparency, rich countries want all nations to follow a single, standards-based approach to verifying their commitments; and on the issue of differentiation, rich countries want some emerging economies, such as China, to take on more responsibility and burden, with less developed countries demanding that their unique circumstances and capabilities be recognized throughout the agreement.
“Whereas we left Copenhagen scared of what comes next, we’ll leave Paris inspired to keep fighting”, said David Turnbull, Director at Oil Change International, a research and advocacy organisation opposed to fossil fuel production.
A deal in Paris would mark a legacy-defining achievement for U.S. President Barack Obama, who has warned not to “condemn our children to a planet beyond their capacity to repair”.
In an address to an audience of over 1,000 political figures from across the world, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed the pact proposes to limit global warming to “well” below 2.0 degrees Celsius and will strive for an even more ambitious goal of 1.5 degree Celsius. Those include terms making the accord legally binding, as well as the 1.5 C goal – below the 2 C standard scientists say is essential to limiting potentially catastrophic climate change.
For nations that face the possibility of forced migration as a result of the effects of climate change, the fact that the accord acknowledges an aim to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 C was something to celebrate. The U.N. has been working for more than two decades to persuade governments to work together to reduce the man-made emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.
U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon described the talks as “extremely difficult” as he urged delegates to put aside national concerns for the good of the entire planet. “I think we got it”, said the negotiator, who was not authorized to speak publicly as the talks were not over yet.
After the document came out, Azeb Girmai, an Ethiopian activist from the Least Developed Countries’ Watch International, a campaign group representing the poorest countries, said the document did not include sufficient compensation for poor nations hard-hit by the pollution that has largely come from the rich world. “Billions of people are relying on your wisdom”, he said Saturday.
The talks were initially scheduled to end Friday. United Nations climate conferences often run past their deadlines, given the complexity and sensitivity of each word in an worldwide agreement and the consequences for national economies.
More than 180 countries presented plans to cut or curb greenhouse gas emissions in the run-up to the conference. That was a major breakthrough for the climate talks, showing nearly all countries were ready to be part of the new deal after years of stalemate.
French President Francois Hollande has called on almost 200 nations to adopt “the first universal agreement on climate”.
“Vulnerable communities require scaled-up assistance to cope with these impacts”, a press release by the Union of Concerned Scientists said Saturday. The basic idea is that emissions of greenhouse gases would be brought as close to zero as possible after 2050 and those emissions that are not eliminated will be balanced with an equivalent amount of removals, for example, by planting forests to absorb carbon dioxide.
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“Canada has advocated for this recognition of the urgency of the threat to small-island states, like the Marshall Islands, with whom we now stand as part of the High Ambition Coalition”, said McKenna, referring to a coalition of more than 100 developing and developed countries, including the USA, cooperating as a block toward common climate goals.
