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Paris climate deal
Topic Started: 14 Feb 2015, 12:20 AM (1,060 Views)
skibboy
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13 February 2015

UN agrees draft text for Paris climate summit

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Work is continuing on text aimed at a new climate change agreement by the end of the year

UN climate talks in Geneva have ended with agreement on a formal draft negotiating text for the summit in Paris in December.

The document, which runs to 86 pages, builds on negotiations in Peru last year.

The Swiss meeting set out to create a draft for consideration at the Paris talks.

The aim is to have a new global climate agreement in place by the end of 2015.

The latest climate talks, which started on Sunday, focussed on finalising a draft negotiating text for the Paris summit.

The six-day conference in the Swiss city was the first formal gathering since the Lima climate summit in December.

"I am extremely encouraged by the constructive spirit and the speed at which negotiators have worked during the past week," said Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

"We now have a formal negotiating text, which contains the views and concerns of all countries. The Lima Draft has now been transformed into the negotiating text and enjoys the full ownership of all countries," she added.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Analysis: Helen Briggs, BBC environment correspondent

The draft text was agreed before the end of the session, in a mood described as "the spirit of Lima".

But rather than being slimmed down, the document has more than doubled in size, to contain everything to be discussed in the run-up to Paris.

Delegates acknowledge that the hard work is still ahead, with the real conflicts to come when negotiators seek to "streamline" the text and narrow down the options for limiting a damaging rise in temperatures.

The key political test is the period from March to June, when individual countries announce their plans to reduce emissions.

At the next climate talks in June, real progress will have to be made to resolve issues such as financing the Paris agreement and ensuring that poorer countries get the support they need to adapt to impacts such as flooding.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Three special sessions have been added to this year's schedule of climate meetings.

They include talks about "intended nationally determined contributions", the commitments to reduce emissions that are meant to pave the way towards a low-carbon future.

National plans

Governments are expected to submit their national plans by an informal deadline of the period from March to June.

China, the United States and the European Union have already given an indication of their plans.

The UN seeks to limit the increase of the average global surface temperature to no more than 2C (3.6F) compared with pre-industrial levels, to avoid "dangerous" climate change.

But scientists warn the Earth is on track for double that target.

The World Meteorological Organization confirmed this month that 2014 had been the hottest year on record, part of a continuing trend.

Fourteen out of the 15 hottest years have been this century.

The UNFCCC, based in Bonn, Germany, has 196 parties - including virtually all of the world's nations - and grew from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for cutting greenhouse gases.

The next meeting will be held in Bonn in June.

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skibboy
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02 September 2015

Climate negotiators 'frustrated' over snail's pace

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© AFP | Data on national greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and timetable of major climate negotiations this year

BONN (AFP) - Diplomats tasked with forging a climate rescue pact expressed frustration Wednesday over the lagging progress, with only seven negotiating days left until a Paris conference which must seal the deal.

Just past the midway mark of a five-day meeting in Bonn to whittle away at the draft text, negotiators gathered to take stock.

"I think we are all equally frustrated at the pace of the negotiations currently," Amjad Abdulla of the Maldives, who speaks for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), told AFP.

Instead of rolling up sleeves and reworking the text, still over 80 pages long and littered with contradictory proposals, the Bonn session had seen "conceptual discussions, going around in circles," he said.

"We need to shift gears a little bit. We are still in the first gear... we may get stuck."

Working under the UN, the world's nations have set themselves the goal of crafting a deal by year's end to halt the march of global warming.

That target can be met only by slashing greenhouse gas emissions produced by mankind's voracious burning of fossil fuels.

The overall goal is to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

A climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009 failed to forge a universal pact, and the 195 nations party to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are eager to avoid a repeat of that high-level bust-up.

There are only two days of negotiating time left this week, and another five scheduled in Bonn in October, ahead of the highly-anticipated November 30-December 11 conference in Paris.

Delegates warned the joint chairmen of the negotiations on Wednesday that time was fast running out.

"We have no more than seven days to deliver what the whole world expects us to deliver," noted a delegate from Tanzania.

Many developing countries have insisted that the negotiations shift to focusing on the text itself, so as to produce a clearer and more concise version for the October round of talks.

"We are not making progress and I think we need to emphasise this," said Samuel Adejuwon of Nigeria, who bemoaned that the talks -- so close to the finish line -- were still focused on the "conceptual framework".

"I wonder if there will be any progress to report back at home," he told the plenary.

If not, "it might be difficult for me to justify sending delegates here again in October," he said.

Others, like the so-called Umbrella Group which includes Australia, the United States, Canada, Russia and Norway, said line-by-line negotiations would be too time consuming.

Co-chairman Ahmed Djoghlaf acknowledged that the session had so far not been sufficiently productive, and promised detailed, text-based negotiations "as soon as possible."

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03 September 2015

Nations narrow gap on make-or-break climate issue

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© BRITISH ANTARCTIC SURVEY/NASA/AFP / by Marlowe Hood | The final Paris climate deal will likely consist of two parts -- the first a "legal instrument" outlining core principles and an annex document of "decisions" that would not carry the same legal weight

PARIS (AFP) - Rich and developing nations thrashing out a UN climate-rescue pact have moved closer on the make-or-break issue of compensation for damages caused by global warming, observers and negotiators said Thursday.

Payouts for "loss and damage," as it is called, would be over and above the annual $100 billion (90 billion euros) starting in 2020 already pledged to help developing nations reduce carbon emissions and adapt to a climate-altered future.

"I can see there has been a huge shift... especially on the part of developed countries," Amjad Abdulla of the Maldives, speaking for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), told AFP.

Poorer nations have flagged loss and damage as a redline issue.

"We came to Bonn concerned that loss and damage could stand between us and an agreement on climate change in Paris," said Julie-Anne Richards of the Climate Justice Programme, a defender of the climate rights of developing nations.

"But there has been real progress on the issue at this meeting," she told journalists.

Diplomats are meeting in the former West German capital to work on the draft text for a highly-anticipated universal pact on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

The 195 members of the UN climate forum have committed to inking the agreement at a November 30-December 11 UN conference in Paris.

The pact will seek to halt the march of global warming through greenhouse gas emission curbs, and to help poor nations cope with unavoidable impacts.

The overarching goal is to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Negotiations on loss and damage have provoked some of the most fiery clashes so far.

Wealthy countries "don't want open-ended compensation liability... that's for sure," commented Abdulla whose nation, along with other AOSIS members, could face the prospect of having to abandon their homelands in the face of rising sea levels caused by climate change.

Progress at the technical meeting in Bonn has largely come in the form of a shift in position by the United States, backed by the European Union, negotiators and analysts say.

In a closed-door meeting earlier in the week, two participants reported that a US delegate told fellow negotiators that "loss and damage" could be part of the Paris package -- a sharp change from previous meetings.

- Differences remain -

The US and EU also agreed in principle to keep in place the so-called Warsaw Mechanism -- the only existing instrument for "loss and damage" -- beyond 2020, when the new agreement will enter into force.

The mechanism was adopted at a climate conference in Poland in 2013, and developing nations had feared it would simply be allowed to expire.

The US and EU did not respond to requests to provide details on their new loss and damage proposal.

Negotiators and observers hailed the advance on a particularly thorny issue, but cautioned that many fundamental differences remain.

The final Paris climate deal will likely consist of two parts -- the first a "legal instrument" outlining core principles and an annex document of "decisions" that would not carry the same legal weight.

Developing countries loss and damages to be enshrined in the main agreement, an idea strongly opposed by most developed nations.

by Marlowe Hood

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'Snail's pace' row over progress at UN climate talks

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, BBC News, Bonn

1 hour ago

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While climate negotiators were meeting in Germany, President Obama was highlighting the issue at a glacier in Alaska

UN officials have reacted sharply to criticism from their Secretary General that climate talks are going at a "snail's pace".

Ban Ki-moon has been concerned that the negotiations are moving too slowly to deliver a new global deal in December.

His views were echoed by many delegates at this latest meeting in Germany.

But one of the men tasked with drafting a new text said that even going at the pace of a mollusc, a draft agreement would be ready for Paris.

And referring to Mr Ban's lofty New York office, Ahmed Djoghlaf said that it was difficult for someone living up on the 38th floor to know what was going on in the basement.

Mr Djoghlaf was speaking here in Bonn where he and his fellow co-chair of the talks, Dan Reifsnyder, were again tasked with producing a draft agreement that would be ready for countries to negotiate over in the French capital at the end of the year.

Their first effort, completed in June, was a compilation of almost all the positions that have developed over the past three years.
It ran to an unwieldy 83 pages.

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UN Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres (left) tasting a new ice cream in Bonn designed to promote green energy

Divided into three parts, the first was the draft of a legally binding agreement, which would define and set a long-term goal for dealing with climate change.

The second part was a so-called "decision of the COP," a less powerful instrument that would lack legal teeth.

The third and largest part of the original document comprised the bits that no-one could agree on.

Now, after a week of slow progress in Bonn, delegates from a large number of countries say they need another, slimmer version of the text, and they have asked the co-chairs to try again.

"It is extremely frustrating, the slow pace at which we've worked this session," Amjad Abdulla, of the Maldives and chief negotiator for small island states, told BBC News.

"I think it's time that the co-chairs prepare a basis for negotiations so that we can actually kick off our negotiations in October."

French cooking

Others were more critical of the pace of preparations.

"The sense of urgency required in view of the few months remaining before Paris in December was simply not there," said Matthias Soderberg, of the ACT Alliance of campaigners.

But the co-chairs rejected these complaints - as did the UN Executive Secretary, Christiana Figueres.

"It is not really about the pace, the questions [are]: Do we remain moving in the direction of progress? Most definitely so. Are all components on the table? Most definitely so. And does everyone still agree to the final destination? Most definitely so," she told reporters.

"The proof is in the pudding and the pudding is going to come out of the oven in Paris."

There are still major divisions between the countries on some critical concepts that will shape the nature of the new agreement.

Among them are the future for fossil fuels, with some developing countries and many environmental groups wanting the agreement to have a firm end in sight for coal, oil and gas.

Many other nations disagree and want a more nuanced goal.

Easy pickings

Despite some progress on the key issue of loss and damage, there are still big disagreements on money and on the concept of differentiation, meaning the share of load that each country takes on.

There were concerns in the halls of the conference centre that the delays and the need for new, simpler texts will lead to an agreement that harvests the lowest hanging fruit and not much more.

"I think that politically we are now in a situation where everybody wants a deal, so we will get one, but the nature of the deal is absolutely still in question," said Prof Michael Jacobs, climate adviser to former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"The world's public will demand a deal that is good enough and that is still the issue that these negotiators have to face."

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06 September 2015

Ministers talk finance, seek to bolster climate pact

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© POOL/AFP / by Mariette LE ROUX | Ministers hold a group photo ahead of an informal meeting to prepare the COP21 summit in Paris, on September 6, 2015

PARIS (AFP) - Ministers and diplomats from 57 countries gathered in Paris Sunday to discuss the make-or-break issue of finance in a climate rescue deal to be sealed in the French capital in December.

The two-day huddle of foreign and environment ministers and senior officials is not part of official negotiations for the highly-anticipated agreement, but is meant to inject political momentum into the fraught UN process.

"We have less than three months before the Paris meeting," French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius, who will preside over the year-end conference, told colleagues as he opened Sunday's meeting.

"We should take full advantage of each time that we meet... The success of Paris will be built ahead of time. We cannot expect some sort of miraculous solution to appear during the final hours of the Paris conference."

On Friday, a five-day round of official text-drafting talks closed in Bonn with negotiators expressing frustration at their own lagging progress.

They turned to the joint chairmen of the UN forum for help, asking them to edit the unwieldy blueprint for an agreement into a more manageable format before the next, and final, pre-Paris negotiating round in Bonn from October 19 to 23.

The pact will be the first to commit all the world's nations to cutting climate-altering greenhouse gases in a bid to limit average warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

- Trying to find compromise -

But there are fundamental disagreements on how to share out emissions cuts between rich nations, which have polluted longer, and emerging giants such as China and India now powering fast-growing economies and populations.

Poor nations seek developed-country commitments of financial and technological aid for their shift to greener energy and adapting to a new, climate-altered world.

They also want a mechanism that will pay for unavoidable climate change-induced losses and damages.

Finance, technology transfers, money for climate adaptation and "loss and damage" are all on the agenda for the informal two-day Paris meeting.

"Our goal is to look at topics that will enable us to facilitate the negotiations," said Fabius, while stressing the ministerial meeting was not mean to replace the formal process but "support" it.

"We're trying to put our finger on those compromises that will form the basis of the formal document."

Observers and participants in the pact-drafting exercise are hopeful that a string of climate-themed meetings in the coming weeks and months will boost the bureaucratic UN process, which has bogged down in fights over procedure and ideology.

Ministers met in a similar informal round in Paris in July; their finance colleagues are to gather for a joint International Monetary Fund-World Bank meeting in Lima in October; and heads of state and government will talk climate on the sidelines of a UN General Assembly in New York later this month.

"We should bring to the table, to the discussion, a very strong political signal around climate finance," said Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar Vidal, who presided over last year's climate conference -- referring to the $100 billion (90 billion euros) per year that rich nations had committed in 2009 to make available from 2020.

"We should assure a very clear and credible trajectory of the climate finance."

by Mariette LE ROUX

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Paris climate summit: Don't mention Copenhagen

David Shukman
Science editor

4 hours ago

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The failures of the Copenhagen summit loom large over Paris

For officials and politicians getting ready for the UN summit on climate change in Paris later this year, there's a word that dare not be named: Copenhagen.

I remember pained faces etched with failure on the final day of a dysfunctional gathering in the Danish capital in 2009, the last time world leaders got together to try to tackle global warming, and the collective memory still haunts the process six years on.

So, in the run-up to the next big attempt to secure a global treaty limiting greenhouse gases, it's worth exploring what's changed since 2009 - and what hasn't.

In some ways, the negotiating landscape is transformed, mainly because of dramatic shifts by the two biggest emitters, the United States and China.

President Obama spoke of the threat of global warming from his first day in office but he was distracted by healthcare in his first term and came to Copenhagen with his hands tied by a reluctant Congress.

But now, as he eyes a chance to leave the White House with a green legacy, he can point to his plan to reduce emissions from power stations as tangible evidence of American willingness to take the issue seriously.

That plan is facing determined opposition from coal states - and may well be dismantled if the next presidential election brings in a Republican - but for the moment it shows the United States in a more constructive light around the negotiating table.

China too is in a different place compared to its role in Copenhagen - which many witnesses there saw as more or less openly obstructive.

China on board

After years of resisting any attempt to be included in an international system of carbon targets, the Chinese leadership is now openly talking of national emissions peaking around 2030, if not before - something that would have been unimaginable amid the chaotic scenes of Copenhagen.

The motivation is more to do with the filthy air choking many Chinese cities - and the increasingly vocal complaints about it from a growing and emboldened middle class - than with climate change itself.

On a visit to China two years ago, the pollution was so dense it closed an airport I was trying to fly from for several hours.

But, whatever the reason, China comes to the talks in Paris using language that could suggest a new willingness to see a global deal.

Another big change from 2009 concerns technology: the prices for renewables have fallen so dramatically in many parts of the world that a future involving clean energy like wind and solar looks far more feasible than it once did.

China is playing a leading role in that. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25637718

And, last but not least, the UN process itself has been upended.

Whereas in Copenhagen there was an effort to browbeat countries into accepting targets for reducing carbon emissions, Paris is about collecting voluntary plans for action drafted by individual countries.

In the jargon - which we'll hear a lot more of - the UN is inviting each government to submit what is called an Intended Nationally-Determined Contribution (INDC).

In plain English, that means a pledge to do something.

The details are here.

So far some 62 countries have tabled their INDCs - covering a little over 60% of global emissions - among them the big guns of the United States, China and the EU.

By the time Paris starts on November 30, there's a hope that even more of these plans will have come in, covering perhaps 85% of emissions - those from India, Brazil, South Africa, and Indonesia are eagerly awaited.

Closer scrutiny

In itself, that could be seen as remarkable progress - just getting so many governments, some very unwilling, even to take part in such a public process.

But closer scrutiny starts to reveal a serious problem: add up all these pledges and - no surprise - there's a big shortfall compared to what the scientists of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say is needed.

The UN Environment Programme estimates that if everyone keeps burning fossil fuels as usual, then a global average temperature rise, compared to the pre-industrial age, of 3C by the end of the century seems likely.

The INDCs submitted so far might reduce that to a likely rise of something like 2.5C by 2100, which is still above the internationally-accepted target of 2C.

That emissions gap gives a hint of difficult hurdles to come.

If the current pledges aren't adequate, there's a plan for the Paris deal to spell out a system of five-year reviews to try to use peer pressure to ratchet up everyone's efforts - but the detail of that is the subject of fierce haggling.

So is the age-old and fraught question of money - with poor countries long cynical about rich world promises of $100bn a year to help them adapt to climate impacts and to transition to green forms of growth. So far some $31-37bn is on the cards.

That may rise but disappointment would seem inevitable.

And hanging over the whole endeavour is the most fundamental challenge of all: agreeing on a system that everyone will see as fair for sharing out the burden of carbon cuts - what is called Common But Differentiated Responsibility.

Is the onus on developed countries which have enjoyed a century or more of emitting greenhouse gas or the giant rapidly-industrialising nations whose emissions are likely to keep soaring? Or a mix of each?

We'll hear much more about that dispute too.

Asked about the chances of success at the talks, UK government sources say they expect a deal to be done but also that "it's not in the bag".

Paris might not be "another Copenhagen" but it definitely won't be easy.

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17 September 2015

EU to set out negotiating stand for Paris climate summit

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© AFP/File | A demonstrator carries a placard reading, "Je suis Planet Earth" ("I am Planet Earth") during The People's Climate march in central London on March 7, 2015

BRUSSELS (AFP) - The European Union is due Friday to formally set out its negotiating stand for the UN climate summit in Paris, including committing to 40 percent greenhouse gas emission cuts over 1990 levels.

The environment ministers from the 28-nation EU will meet in Brussels to set out their "vision for the architecture" of a global deal in the French capital where heads of state and government are to meet from November 30, an EU source said Thursday.

In October last year, EU leaders agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 over a benchmark of 1990, and push for 27 percent targets for renewable energy supply and efficiency gains.

The source who asked not to be named told AFP the ministers would stick to their central pledge, hailed as one of the world's most ambitious targets.

But he said it was not yet clear what position the ministers would take on longer term targets.

In a speech in Brussels last month, EU Climate and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete called for "a long-term target to collectively reduce global emissions by at least 60 percent by 2050 compared to 2010 and be near zero or below by 2100."

The source said the ministers would push for a regular post-summit review to strengthen efforts to fight climate change, but could not confirm they would back previous calls for such a review every five years.

In line with UN goals, the source said, the ministers will reaffirm the need to limit global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels, which scientists see as key to avoiding catastrophic drought, floods and sea level rises.

The source expected the EU ministers will push for measures to make sure governments match words with deeds.

"Nationally determined targets must be backed by multilaterally agreed rules on transparency and accountability," Canete said last month.

The ministers are also expected to support a "legally-binding" agreement.

The EU, the source said, will continue supporting calls from poor and developing nations, among the most threatened by global warming, which are insisting rich counterparts show how they intend to meet a promise made in 2009 of $100 billion (90 billion euros) in climate finance annually from 2020.

The UN Paris conference will seek to crown a six-year effort by 195 nations with a post-2020 pact on curbing greenhouse gases.

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Paris climate summit: UN negotiations 'need redesign'

By Rebecca Morelle
Science Correspondent, BBC News

12 October 2015

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Scientists say the climate summit in Paris is too focussed on self interest

The UN climate negotiations are heading for failure and need a major redesign if they are to succeed, scientists say.

The pledges that individual countries are offering ahead of the Paris climate summit in December are too entrenched in self interest instead of being focussed on a common goal.

The researchers say the science of cooperation is being ignored.

Instead, they say the negotiations should focus on a common commitment on the global price of carbon.

This means countries would agree on a uniform charge for carbon pollution, a scheme that would encourage polluters to reduce their emissions.

The comments from researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, University of Maryland, US, and University of Cologne, in Germany, are published in the journal Nature.

'I will, if you will'

Ahead of December's United Nations climate meeting, individual countries have submitted their plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

These are called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions - or INDCs.

However, the researchers say that this approach will not work.

Prof David MacKay, from the University of Cambridge, who was former chief scientific advisor to Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), said: "The science of cooperation predicts that if all you are doing is naming individual contributions - offers that aren't coupled to each other - then you'll end up with a relatively poor outcome.

"We have the history of the Kyoto agreement as an example of this. Initially, the approach was to find a common commitment, but eventually it descended into a patchwork of individual commitments... and that led to very weak commitments and several countries leaving the process."

The Paris negotiations, he warned, were heading in the same direction.

Instead, the researchers say, a reciprocal approach could transform the meeting.

"If you make a treaty that is based on reciprocity, so 'I will, if you will' and 'I won't, if you won't', then you can end up in a very different position," explained Prof MacKay.

"If people make a common commitment that they will match what others do, then it becomes in your self interest to advocate a high level of action because it will apply not only to you but also to others."

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The scientists say setting an agreed global charge for carbon emissions

The scientists believe that setting a common price for carbon, which could be implemented through carbon tax or emissions trading schemes, could work.

Prof MacKay said: "This is a price that could be negotiated and agreed, and would apply to all countries."

The researchers admit that with the Paris climate conference just weeks away and the fact that global carbon pricing is not already on the table, their idea is unlikely to have much influence.

However, they say the science of cooperation should be taken into account for future negotiations.

Commenting on the paper, Bob Ward from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: "This is a thoughtful contribution but rather too pessimistic about the United Nations climate change negotiations.

"The authors are right that a global price on carbon is necessary, although it would be, on its own, insufficient to generate the pace and scale of action required."

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EU climate chief hails global progress on emissions

By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst

13 October 2015

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Commissioner Canete says the published plans are "astounding"

Europe's climate change chief says he is astonished at the positive progress by governments towards a global deal on CO2.

Miguel Arias Cañete said it was "quite astounding" that 149 nations have published their plans to curb carbon emissions.

He told BBC News that even six months ago he would not have believed such commitments would emerge.

Nations have been announcing plans ahead of the Paris climate summit.

He warned, though, that nations' pledges had not yet reached the level needed to prevent potentially dangerous warming.

Mr Cañete said: "There are many, many reasons to be cheerful. The fact that 149 countries to date have presented the United Nations their commitments to fight global warming is astonishing.

"We have countries which together produce nearly 90% of global emissions - so that's a big effort. If we compare it with the Kyoto Protocol - the first time we tried an international agreement to help global warming - there were only 35 countries and they covered less than 14% of emissions.

"It's quite astounding. The most important things is that the commitments are not only figures or targets - it shows countries are developing climate policies in a very comprehensive way."

Top-down target

Mr Cañete said the key was that instead of a UN conference imposing top-down targets, governments were volunteering their own action plans.

"There is no complacency - but we if we had kept on going with business as usual (ever-rising carbon emissions), global temperature would have raised between 3.8 and 4.7C," he said.

"We estimate that current commitments achieve about 3C maximum. That's a big step, although clearly it's not enough."

The generally agreed maximum "safe" temperature rise is 2C - although some vulnerable nations say this is not safe for them.

Professor Jacquie McGlade, chief scientist of the UN environment programme (UNEP) told BBC News: "I am very surprised in a positive way - the normal procedure for these events has been governments brought kicking and struggling to the table.

"Now I see member states, citizens are willingly pledging for transformational change in society. It's a participatory progress so you do feel it will stick when we leave Paris (the climate conference next month)," she said.

"When countries saw the big players - the EU, the USA - put their figures on the table, there's a bit of copycat - which is a good thing.

"Some countries sent in their commitments and having seen other countries, they took them away and came back with more ambition. That tells you this is going to be a race to the top, not the bottom." Gabon was one example, she said.

Prof McGlade, based in Nairobi, said Africa was suffering the consequences of climate change already and was determined to tackle the problem itself.

"There is a sense that this is a universal problem - the 'them and us' is beginning to disappear," she told BBC News.

"Africa is becoming more and more conscious that it has to be a leader (on energy) if it wants to attract investment. You see Africa approaching this with an appetite, then you see a country like the UK not being pro-active in a way we would have recognised before."

Charles Sena Ayenu, a Ghanaian solar entrepreneur taking part in the Rabat meeting, said: "There's still work to be done, but I see a lot of optimism, a lot of excitement and passion - not just from governments but from the private sector like us."

The positive comments are predicated on the expectation that nations will actually carry out their promises. They contradict the conclusions of a new report from the former UK chief energy scientist David Mackay, which asserts that the UN talks are doomed to fail because nations will do as little as possible.

Mr Cañete stressed that the current wave of commitments should be a starting point, not a finishing point.

The EU wants the Paris conference to agree the need for a regular review of climate targets.

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European Parliament Calls For Shipping Emissions Reduction Target in Paris Deal

October 14, 2015 by gCaptain

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Image (c) Shutterstock/CNRN

Members of the European Parliament are calling on the EU and all other countries to include a requirement for reducing emissions from international shipping and aviation at this year’s Paris climate summit.

The European Parliament said Wednesday that the EU and its member states must call for a 40% cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and scale up climate financial commitments at the COP21 UN climate talks in Paris in December.

The MEPs point out that transport is the second-largest sector generating greenhouse gas emissions and calls on the parties to COP21 to work through corresponding UN agencies, International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), on measures to curb their emissions by the end of 2016.

The IMO has argued that any discussion on shipping’s contribution to global CO2 emissions must be held at the IMO, not left to individual governments that may be tempted to consider specific measures aimed at reducing shipping’s overall contribution of CO2 emissions.

In a speech during a shipping conference in Singapore in September, IMO Secretary General Koji Sekimizu pointed to IMO’s proven track record in developing measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from shipping and mitigate its contribution to climate change, such as the 1997 adoption of the Protocol to the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, known as MARPOL Annex VI, and amendments that followed.

The IMO’s stance on climate change and refusal to challenge shipping emissions has drawn widespread criticism, most recently from the Republic of the Marshall Islands foreign minister Tony de Brum, who labelled IMO secretary general Koji Sekimizu’s attitude as “a danger to the planet”.

Chiming in on the topic, Sotiris Raptis, shipping policy officer at the non-governmental organization Transport & Environment, commented:

“The Parliament has sent a clear message to the EU and all negotiators at Paris; the aviation and shipping sectors need emissions reduction targets too, so there is no reasonable excuse to continue exempting them. You just can’t have a global deal to combat climate change without capping the growing emissions from international aviation and shipping, which have CO2 emissions equal to those of the UK and Germany respectively.”

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EU Shipowners Call End-2016 Emission Reduction Goal ‘Unrealistic’

October 16, 2015 by Reuters

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Photo: Shutterstock/Phillip Minnis

LONDON, Oct 16 (Reuters) – The global shipping industry is unlikely to meet an end-2016 deadline for setting targets and developing a plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, Europe’s shipping industry lobby said on Friday.

The European Commission this week called on the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to present measures to cut emissions by the end of 2016.

The move is part of an EU pledge to cut 1990-level greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030.

“2016 is right around the corner and as such it is rather unrealistic to expect the IMO to come up with a solution in a matter of months,” Patrick Verhoeven, secretary general of the European Community Shipowners Associations (ESCA), said in an emailed statement.

Debate on how to curb shipping emissions, which the Commission estimates account for 3 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 4 percent of EU greenhouse gas emissions, has rumbled on for years with little progress.

Maritime emissions were omitted from national commitments under the U.N’s 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which ceded control to the IMO, the U.N. body responsible for the sector.

There is also no reference to shipping in the latest text drawn up ahead of climate talks to be held in Paris beginning in November aimed at drawing up a global climate agreement to succeed the Kyoto pact.

Under EU rules, large ship owners will have to monitor emissions from 2018.

Benoit Loicq, the ECSA’s safety and environment director, said any efforts to cut emissions from the sector must fit in with that timetable.

“If we now backtrack and skip the data collection phase altogether, how would it be possible to set realistic and fair targets?” he said in the statement.

(Reporting by Susanna Twidale; editing by Jason Neely)

(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Posted Image

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Paris climate summit: Major oil producers back 'effective' deal

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, BBC News

8 hours ago

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Shell, one of the signatories of the declaration, met protests as it attempted to drill in the Arctic

The leaders of 10 of the world's biggest oil companies have offered their qualified support for a new global treaty on climate change.

The producers of 20% of the world's oil and gas say they share the ambition to limit warming to 2C (35.6F).

They promise to work to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the global energy mix.

But green groups were dismissive, saying that "arsonists don't make good firefighters".

The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative represents major producers including BP, Shell, Saudi Aramco and Total among others.

In their declaration they call for an "effective climate change agreement" at Cop21 - the 21st UN conference on climate change, which takes place in Paris at the end of November, when 196 countries will attempt to reach a new deal.

"Our shared ambition is for a 2C future," the 10 chief executive officers said in a statement which acknowledges that the existing trend of the world's net greenhouse gas emissions is not consistent with this aim.
"It is a challenge for the whole of society. We are committed to playing our part. Over the coming years we will collectively strengthen our actions and investments to contribute to reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of the global energy mix."

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The oil and gas industry leaders agreed to support an "effective" climate agreement

The companies say they will attempt to make their own production operations more efficient and say that over the past 10 years they have already reduced their emissions by 20%.

They promise to promote natural gas as a better option than coal and invest in carbon capture and storage as well as renewable energy.

"Sometimes in all these discussions you have the impression that all fossil fuels are the bad guys. But the bad guys are part of the solution," Total's CEO Patrick Pouyanne told a gas and electricity summit in Paris earlier this week.

"Whatever people think, we still need fossil fuels. We need to make advocacy for gas. We need to explain to our policy makers that gas has to be encouraged," he told news agencies.

However the group of 10 does not include major US oil companies such as Exxon and Chevron.

Environmental campaigners were quick to pour scorn on the oil and gas producers' initiative, saying it would do little to aid the decarbonisation of the global economy.

"The oil companies behind this announcement have spent years lobbying to undermine effective climate action, each and every one of them has a business plan that would lead to dangerous global temperature rises, yet suddenly they expect us all to see them as the solution, not the problem," said Charlie Kronick from Greenpeace.

"The world should thank them for their offer of advice but politely turn it down. Arsonists don't make good firefighters."

Climate negotiators reassemble in Bonn next week in an effort to advance a new global deal.

They will have their first opportunity to respond to a slimmed down draft that is expected to be the basis of the Paris agreement.

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17 October 2015

France urges climate talks progress, Hollande downbeat

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© Pool/AFP | France's President Francois Hollande walks on the Solheimajokull glacier during a visit to Iceland on October 16, 2015

PARIS (AFP) - French President Francois Hollande, on a visit to Iceland Friday, said he was "very pessimistic" about the effects of climate change as negotiators prepare for preparatory talks in Bonn on a climate rescue pact.

France is hosting a crucial year-end UN climate conference and officials will meet in the former west German capital on Monday for five days of intense debate over the blueprint for what would be the first-ever global climate agreement.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius earlier urged delegates to make progress at the final official negotiating round before the November 30-December 11 Paris conference.

"We have to hope that parties accept it (the latest version of the draft) as the basis for negotiation," he told journalists in Paris.

"There will certainly be additions and changes and that is normal, but my wish is that parties will make the best use of these few days to make strong progress."

Standing at the foot of Iceland's Solheimajökull glacier, which is melting rapidly because of warmer temperatures, Hollande said he felt as if he was witnessing "the disappearance of history".

"I am very pessimistic about the effects of global warming. This glacier is receding by 50 metres a year -- that's very fast, much faster than we had imagined," he told reporters.

Negotiators in Bonn will tackle a long list of deeply divisive issues, starting with how to divvy up responsibility for limiting, and adapting to, fossil fuel-driven threats to the Earth's climate system.

There is also the question of who should foot the bill.

The Bonn session must yield an "advanced draft" to be polished by government ministers and heads of state for adoption in Paris.

Since the last meeting in September, the joint chairmen of the talks, Algeria's Ahmed Djoghlaf and Daniel Reifsnyder of the United States, have slashed the blueprint from 80-odd pages to 20.

"Now we have to choose between the many options," Fabius said. "A maximum number of issues must be settled even before the beginning of the (Paris) conference."

"We have to avoid the Copenhagen syndrome," he added, referring to the 2009 UN conference in the Danish capital that ended with more than 110 frustrated heads of state and government struggling, in vain, to forge a comprehensive deal.

For Paris, world leaders have been invited to attend on the first day only, to give "political impetus" to ministers and officials who must deliver the final product.

After Copenhagen, nations set a new deadline of 2015 for an agreement that would enter into force in 2020.

The overarching goal is to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels to avoid worst-case-scenario changes to Earth's climate system.

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Copenhagen ghosts haunt climate talks

Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

8 hours ago

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UN climate chief Christiana Figueres and French foreign minister Laurent Fabius are hoping that talks will stay on track to secure a deal in Paris

"I already seen that movie, it doesn't end well, it doesn't, it gets really nasty." So said Venezuelan negotiator Claudia Salerno in a tense session here at the Bonn climate talks on Thursday evening.

"I hope this is not going to be just a really, really nasty second Copenhagen," she said to sustained applause.

Yes Claudia mentioned the C-word that was on everyone's minds here in Bonn.

Copenhagen.

The city where aspirations for a strong, global deal on climate change came to nothing in the chilly Danish capital, back in 2009.

Despite the attentions of the superstars of global politics, including the freshly minted President Obama, delegates were unwilling to go along with a deal that had been constructed by a small cohort of countries behind closed doors.

Fast forward six years and countries have once again rounded up enough momentum to have a crack at the seemingly impossible - getting unanimous agreement from 195 parties on a long-term climate deal that will have significant implications for their economies and populations.

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Protestors in Bonn want climate diplomats to take action to keep temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees C

Where Copenhagen tried to impose a deal from the top down, the proposed Paris accord would be from the bottom up - countries themselves would decide how much they could cut their emissions and change their economies.

And right up to the start of this week, there was general agreement that things were moving very much in the right direction.

China and the US staged a well-choreographed love-in on climate change, and over 150 countries came forward with their detailed plans.

In fact the less that was actually written down, the more agreement their seemed to be.

Juddering halt

Unfortunately that dream like state came to a juddering halt when the parties arrived here in Bonn.

Having tasked the co-chairs of the talks with producing a draft of a new deal, there was howls of indignation when the 20-page document was actually published.

Developing countries were incandescent, especially on the question of finance to help the poorer countries cut their carbon and cope with the impacts.

There were accusations of apartheid like tactics from the South African head of the main group of poorer nations, called the G77 and China.

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Climate change is a pressing issue for island states such as the Maldives

After a late night session, extra pages of text were re-inserted.

But the issue of trust between the countries had taken a bit of a beating.

"We began with a draft that didn't reflect developing countries' views and lost a day putting them back in," said Amjad Abdulla of the Maldives and chair of the Alliance of small Island States.

"If we want to avoid another Copenhagen in Paris we'll need to take this lesson to heart."

Things got worse later in the week when a meeting of the parties started without the chair of G77 group.

Ambassador Nozipho Mxakato-Diseko, was seething about the perceived snub.

"You cannot wish the group away, we are not an inconvenience to be ignored!" she told the assembly.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Key elements of the Copenhagen deal:

-No reference to legally binding agreement

-Recognised the need to limit global temperatures rising no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels

-Developed countries to "set a goal of mobilising jointly $100bn a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries"

-On transparency: Emerging nations were to monitor own efforts and report to UN every two years. Some international checks

-No detailed framework on carbon markets - "various approaches" were to be pursued

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Another sore issue was the question of observers. Japan had asked that members of non-governmental organisations and civil society groups be excluded to allow real negotiations to begin.

Cue further anger from Venezuela's Claudia.

"Why observers were taken out why at this stage when we were so close? I am just maybe disappointed by the whole thing, I felt we were going in a different direction."

Many delegates said that they felt the chill, cold hand of history.

There were some echoes of the bitter divisions between rich and poor nations, that have again and again sabotaged efforts to curb climate change.

Many others, to be fair, felt that despite the mood, things were in a far better place than they were in the days before Copenhagen.

Everyone still believes in a deal and they are working towards that goal.

But all the grandstanding had eaten into two of the things in remarkably short supply here in Bonn, trust and time.

Australian delegate Peter Woolcott, stressed that this meeting really had to deliver a text that ministers could understand.

"We do look forward to working constructively to working with parties to reach an ambitious overall agreement in Paris," he said.

"But we are a long way from that at this point."

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23 October 2015

Battle-weary climate envoys endorse outlines of UN pact

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© AFP/File | Boat docks sit empty on dry land, as Folsom Lake reservoir near Sacramento stands at only 18 percent capacity during severe drought in California on September 17, 2015

BONN (AFP) - Negotiators wound down a bruising round of talks Friday with broad agreement on the rough outlines of a UN climate pact to be inked in December.

"It is so decided," the co-chairman of the talks, Daniel Reifsnyder, said at the close of a fraught negotiating round in Bonn -- gavelling through a proposal to endorse the draft text to emerge from the five-day haggle.

The meeting was tasked with producing a clear and concise framework for political compromises to be thrashed out later, at the level of ministers and heads of state.

But it was marred by arguments, often virulent, about procedure and protocol, and delegates agreed that further editing work will need to be done.

The talks got off to a false start when developing nations accused rich ones Monday of cutting their core demands out of the emerging text.

Much of the rest of the session was spent reinserting dropped phases, and the text grew from 20 pages on Monday to 34 by Wednesday, and 55 at the meeting's close.

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27 October 2015

US climate envoy visits Cuba, Brazil before Paris summit

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© AFP/File | Todd Stern, the United States Special Envoy for Climate Change, pictured on December 8, 2014, left for Brazil and Cuba to prepare the ground for talks on a global climate pact

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has sent its climate change envoy to former foe Cuba and Latin American giant Brazil ahead of the global environment summit that begins next month in Paris.

The State Department said that Todd Stern had left for Brazil and Cuba on Sunday to prepare the ground for talks on a global climate pact.

His trip is due to wrap up on Thursday.

Brazil and the United States have been working together on climate change issues, and Presidents Barack Obama and Dilma Rousseff launched a joint working group in June.

But Havana and Washington only restored full diplomatic relations in July after a five-decade Cold War stand-off, so Stern will be breaking new ground in his meeting.

The State Department said Tuesday he was seeking an "opportunity to promote mutual understanding with Cuban officials on climate change" ahead of the Paris summit.

Earlier, France had confirmed that 80 world leaders -- including Obama, China's Xi Jinping and India's Narendra Modi -- will be in Paris from November 30 for the summit.

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Buddhists call for strong Paris climate deal to limit warming

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, BBC News

29 October 2015

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The Dalai Lama is one of 15 leading Buddhists who are urging politicians towards a climate agreement

Senior Buddhists have called on world leaders to agree a new climate change agreement at a conference in Paris next month.

The 15 signatories, including the Dalai Lama, are urging politicians to completely phase out fossil fuels.

They argue that the rise in global temperatures must be limited to 1.5C in the future.

Observers say it is the first time that so many leading Buddhists have joined together on a global issue.

The statement from the leaders of over a billion Buddhists worldwide says that the causes of this "environmental crisis" are the use of fossil fuels, unsustainable consumption patterns, lack of awareness and lack of concern about the consequences of our actions.

The leaders urge negotiators to use "wisdom and compassion" to find an agreement at the Conference of the Parties in the French capital at the end of November.

"We are at a crucial crossroads where our survival and that of other species is at stake as a result of our actions," the statement says, arguing that the world must move to 100% renewable and clean energy.

The leaders call for a deal in Paris that will limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

This will encourage the many small island states who are pressing for 1.5 degree target with the view that anything beyond that may make their homes uninhabitable as seas rise in response to warming.

"Everyday life can easily lead us to forget that we are inextricably linked to the natural world through every breath we take, the water we drink and the food we eat," said Lama Lobzang, secretary of the International Buddhist Confederation.

"Humanity must act on the root causes of this crisis, which is driven by greed, thoughtlessness and a lack of concern about the consequences of our actions."

The Buddhist intervention comes in the wake of similar statements of concern about climate change from Catholic and Muslim leaders.

In their call, the Buddhists leaders say the welcome and support these declarations.

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UN: Climate plans must go further to prevent dangerous warming

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, BBC News

30 October 2015

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Carbon emissions will be "significantly dented" according to the UN, if all the plans are put into action

The UN has released its assessment of national plans to limit climate change, submitted by 146 countries.

Officials say the submissions, in their current form, won't keep global temperatures from rising by more than the 2C danger threshold.

The global total of carbon emissions will continue to grow, although more slowly than over the past two decades.

However the UN report says the plans are a major step forward and the 2C goal is still "within reach".

The UN believes that these national climate plans, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) will form the cornerstone of a binding, global treaty on climate change that will be agreed at a conference in Paris in December.

According to the UN, the submissions now cover around 86% of global emissions: about four times the amount covered by the Kyoto Protocol, the world's first carbon cutting treaty.

Their assessment is decidedly upbeat about the plans, despite acknowledging that taken together they point to rises in global temperatures of 2.7C above the pre-industrial level.

Scientists have determined that if temperature rises exceed 2C, this will lead to significant and dangerous climate impacts, which will especially hit the world's poor.

UN climate chief, Christiana Figueres, said the plans were an excellent first step: "The INDCs have the capability of limiting the forecast temperature rise to around 2.7C by 2100, by no means enough but a lot lower than the estimated four, five, or more degrees of warming projected by many prior to the INDCs."

Observers say the 2.7C figure is a substantial improvement on 3.1C, which was the estimate when the plans were assessed last December.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


UN climate conference 30 Nov - 11 Dec 2015

Posted Image

COP 21 - the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties - will see more than 190 nations gather in Paris to discuss a possible new global agreement on climate change, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the threat of dangerous warming due to human activities.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


A key finding of the UN reports is that the INDCs will bring down per capita emissions by 9% by 2030.

But while the rate of growth in CO2 may be declining, the overall amount of carbon in the atmosphere will continue to grow significantly over the next 15 years.

Compared to 2010 levels, the UN says that overall emissions could be up to 22% higher in 2030.

The assessment says that, as they stand, the plans won't achieve the goal of peaking global emissions and then reducing them rapidly.

Another concern is that 25% of the total range of emissions reductions are conditional upon financial support from richer countries.

Despite these issues, the fact that so many countries, rich and poor, have submitted plans to cut carbon is giving environmental campaigners great hope that a new deal is imminent.

"The vast majority of the INDCs this time around, 105 of them, contain concrete greenhouse gas mitigation targets. That's in contrast to 27 for Copenhagen," said Taryn Fransen from the World Resources Institute, referring to the failed conference in the Danish capital in 2009.

"You have quite a few more countries that are now specifying absolute decreases in emissions levels. You have countries like China, South Africa and Singapore talking about peaking emissions through a hard cap.

"Even much smaller countries like Ethiopia, Bhutan and Costa Rica are identifying absolute limits on the quantity of emissions. I think that signals a real evolution."

The challenge for the UN is now to take these intentions and turn them into a coherent and legally binding deal when heads of government and negotiators meet in Paris in a month.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Analysis: David Shukman - BBC Science Editor

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UN climate chief Christiana Figueres remains upbeat that a strong deal can be achieved in Paris

An "unprecedented engagement", says Christiana Figueres, the head of the UN's climate change negotiations.

And if one thinks back to the irritable, dysfunctional days of the Copenhagen summit in 2009, the last big push for an international response to global warming, there has been a remarkable turnaround.

In the aftermath of that failed gathering, it seemed almost inconceivable that within a matter of years new momentum would be returned to what has generally been a faltering process.

It's worth bearing in mind that the national pledges to take action are of course entirely voluntary.

When the idea of individual submissions was first agreed, it was perfectly possible that many, if not most, of the world's 196 countries would choose to turn a blind eye, or plead some other pressing distraction, or argue that cutting greenhouse gases is a task to be faced by others.

Instead, an impressive 86% of global emissions are covered if you add up the total of all the different pledges.

Will it ultimately make any difference?

The numbers don't add up to what the scientists say is needed to avoid the worst of global warming.

Emissions will still keep rising, albeit at a slower pace.

And the promises are just that - promises. Who knows how many governments will turn them into law and take them seriously?

How many will refuse to act until the right finance is offered?

The outcome of all this is uncertain and much depends on the exact deal thrashed out at the approaching summit in Paris.

Copenhagen may well haunt the talks.

But compared to where this process stood six years ago, there's a world of difference.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Even though the plans don't add up to enough of a cut to avoid a 2C rise, campaigners believe that a strong review mechanism can - and must - be put in place by the Paris agreement.

"Paris will not be the end of the world's efforts to tackle climate change, but it might be the end of the beginning," said Mohammed Adow from Christian Aid.

"Going forward we will need a five-year review mechanism that will track how countries are doing and push them to do more as technology advances and more finance becomes available."

Getting all that into a Paris deal won't be easy.

In fact the emissions pledges are the most straightforward aspect.

In fact, the negotiators now have a draft document that runs to 50 dense pages.

In the words of one delegate at a recent negotiating session, even the world's best paid lawyer would be hard pressed to understand it.

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France to reinstate border controls for UN climate talks

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© Dominique Faget, AFP | A picture taken on October 30, 2015 shows stickers of the COP21, in Paris, ahead of the Climate Change Conference 2015

Text by NEWS WIRES
2015-11-06

France will reinstate controls on its borders - normally open to other countries in Europe's free-travel zone - for the period around a major U.N. climate conference in Paris, the interior minister said Friday.

Authorities are on alert for violent protesters as well as potential terror attacks.

Bernard Cazeneuve said on BFM television Friday that the controls will be in place for a month as part of larger security measures around the Nov. 30-Dec. 11 conference.

He did not elaborate on how tightly the borders would be controlled or how the border checks would be carried out.

Europe's so-called Schengen zone of countries with open borders does allows for occasional reintroduction of internal border checks, which some countries have done amid this year's migrant crisis.

Activist groups say they were informed that the French controls would begin Nov. 13.

France is still reeling from deadly attacks by Islamic extremists in January on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery.

Since then, the country has seen several other smaller attacks or attempts, including when a heavily armed Islamic radical was prevented by young American passengers from attacking a high-speed train in August.

The climate conference is aimed at reaching the most ambitious accord to date for world governments to reduce emissions that cause global warming.

Organizers expect at least 40,000 people for the conference, in addition to tens of thousands of activists from a broad range of environmental, human rights and other groups from around the world.

A major protest march is planned through Paris

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06 November 2015

France's climate ambassador brings 'tough love' to Paris talks

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© AFP / by Catherine Hours, Joshua Melvin | French Special Representative for the 2015 Paris Climate Conference, Laurence Tubiana, arrives on August 25, 2015 at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris to take part in a meeting in preparation of the COP21

PARIS (AFP) - As France's top climate envoy, Laurence Tubiana has to be light on her diplomatic feet and has gained a reputation both for her frank, unpretentious style -- and her sporty sneakers.

In a world of button-down diplomats, Tubiana's Converse shoes have become a fitting trademark as she has sprinted around the globe pushing for a climate rescue pact.

She will be back in Paris on Sunday to welcome about 60 foreign ministers for discussions aimed at clinching an 195-nation agreement against global warming at UN talks that kick off this month in the French capital.

Since being named France's climate ambassador to the world in mid-2014, Tubiana has been everywhere from Saudi Arabia to China to India to help encourage a deal.

Her role in the process "is going to see people, understand where they are and see where we can take them, and do it repeatedly to encourage them to develop," she told AFP.

Yet this straight-shooting academic -- who has never held elected office -- is not your average diplomat.

"Let me talk to you very frankly, by now you should have understood that it is my style and I think it will continue to be my style," she said during a negotiation session in Germany last month.

The 64-year-old, an economist by training, believes the climate crisis shines a harsh light on humanity's ravenous consumption of the Earth's resources.

"The situation is unbearable, untenable, unequal -- favouring ways of consumption and behaviour that are harmful to everyone," she told AFP.

"So there is an aspect of justice in climate matters, which is a real motivation for me."

Firmly on the left of the political spectrum, her first big job in government was as an adviser to socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin in 1997.

The posting plunged her into the negotiations for the landmark Kyoto Protocol on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the precursor to the agreement hoped for in Paris.

After founding a sustainable development think tank at Paris's prestigious Sciences Po university, she joined the doomed climate negotiations in Copenhagen in 2009, which ended in confusion and without a deal.

- Big business links? -

In her time on the world stage, the multilingual Tubiana -- who was born in Algeria and moved to France in 1962 when the north African country became independent -- has won her share of fans.

"I think she is doing a very, very good job," said UN climate chief Christiana Figueres. "If I would bring it down to two words it is 'tough love'."

Figueres added that Tubiana is a good listener and has respect for others' perspectives, but at the same time is possessed of the assertiveness needed to push negotiators toward an agreement.

"Laurence has made a lot of friends," said Seyni Nafo, a spokesman for the African bloc at the Paris talks.

"She has an ability to listen and respond, without arrogance or pretention."

However, Tubiana has come in for sharp criticism for her ties to a handful of France's biggest corporations -- some of them major carbon polluters.

A 2015 piece in satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo noted the board of directors of the think tank she founded -- the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) -- includes the likes of energy giants EDF and GDF Suez.

"I created the institute as a bridge between ecologists, academics, scientists, governments and civil society organisations," Tubiana said.

"The businesses are a minority on the board of directors, they don't make the decisions."

by Catherine Hours, Joshua Melvin

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Putin to attend COP 21 climate summit in Paris

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© AFP / Ria Novosti / Mikhail Klimentyev | Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to attend the COP 21 climate change summit in Paris starting on November 30, 2015

Text by FRANCE 24
2015-11-08

Russia’s Vladimir Putin will attend an upcoming UN summit in Paris tasked with inking a global pact to rein in global warming, France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Sunday, while warning that the planet faces a looming climate “catastrophe”.

Russia, a major oil producer, is seen as a deal-maker or breaker in the years-long attempt to negotiate the world’s first truly universal pact to rein in global warming by curbing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions.

“It is life on our planet itself which is at stake,” Fabius told journalists as ministers and climate envoys from 70 countries met in the French capital for pre-summit talks to iron out tough political questions.

“There is absolute urgency,” he added, in chasing the UN goal of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

The UN’s climate science panel has warned of an average temperature rise of “four, five, six degrees, if we do not act extremely quickly”, said Fabius.

“This would have catastrophic consequences because there would be drought... and colossal migration problems, including problems of war and peace.”

The three-day ministerial gathering, from Sunday to Tuesday, seeks a much-needed political convergence on key political issues still dividing nations negotiating for a climate pact.

The final pact is set to be signed by ministers at the end of the November 30 to December 11 UN summit in Paris, known as COP 21, crowning years of tough bartering.

That meeting will be opened by UN chief Ban Ki-moon and some 100 heads of state and government including US President Barack Obama, China’s Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi of India and now Putin.

The Paris agreement will be the first uniting all the world’s nations in curbing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, oil and gas.

High stakes

But the UN this week issued a fresh warning that country pledges submitted to date set the stage for warming of closer to three degrees Celsius, or more.

Ministers will base their discussions in the coming days on a rough draft of a deal compiled by rank-and-file diplomats over years of tough negotiations in the UN climate forum.

The blueprint remains little more than a laundry list of often directly-opposing national options for dealing with the challenge at hand.

The last round of technical negotiations in Bonn in October saw squabbles along well-rehearsed fault lines of developed vs developing nations.

Developing countries insist rich ones should lead the way in slashing emissions because historically they have emitted more pollution.

Developing nations also want assurances of financing to make the shift from cheap and abundant fossil fuel to more sustainable energy sources, and to shore up defences against climate change-induced superstorms, drought, flood and sea-level rises.

But industrialised countries point the finger at emerging giants such as China and India spewing carbon dioxide as they burn coal to power expanding populations and economies.

These crux issues must ultimately be settled at the political level by ministers and heads of state and government.

The preparatory talks bring together ministers of all the negotiating blocs, and include top envoys from major carbon emitters China, the United States, the European Union, India, and Brazil.

It is the third such ministerial round in Paris this year.

Much work lies ahead outside the 195-nation UN climate forum, including a G20 summit in Turkey this month where the thorny issue of climate finance will be discussed.

Last month, scientists said the first nine months of 2015 had been the hottest on record worldwide.

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Interpol highlights crimes against the environment ahead of COP21

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© Photo by International Forum on Technology and Security (FITS)

Text by Sébastian SEIBT
2015-11-10

Crimes against the environment – such as illegal deforestation, wildlife trafficking and toxic waste dumping – now bring in as much as $213 billion a year, but Interpol officials say the problem is not getting enough attention.

International experts gathered in the French city of Nimes for three days of discussions on environmental crimes this week ahead of the upcoming UN climate summit in Paris (November 30 to December 11).

Delegates highlighted a startling figure: After drug trafficking, counterfeiting and human trafficking, crimes against the environment have now become the fourth-largest money-maker for organised crime, generating between $70 billion and $213 billion per year, according to estimates.

The issue is nevertheless barely on the agenda of the key United Nations climate talks in Paris, also known as the COP 21.

The relative lack of interest in environmental crimes is a source of worry for Cees Van Duijn, Interpol’s Environmental Crime Programme project leader, who jointly organised the Nimes conference with the France-based International Forum on Technology and Security (FITS).

He spoke to FRANCE 24 on the sidelines of the meeting about his concerns.


FRANCE 24: Why are environmental crimes largely missing from the COP 21 agenda?

Cees Van Duijn: I regret that this issue is being overlooked at the international climate conference.

We need stronger political support in order to address these types of crimes, but to get that political support we need people who have firsthand knowledge of the problem to be invited to speak at major meetings.

The consequences of drug trafficking are immediately visible, but this is not the case with environmental crime, which can seem an abstract phenomenon – so it is hard to it make it a priority.

Yet we are all victims of crimes committed against the environment, even if they occur on the other side of the planet.


FRANCE 24: Are environmental crimes increasing?

Van Duijn: It's difficult to say, because it remains a relatively recent field of investigation and we have few references for comparison.

But it is undoubtedly gaining ground.

In any case, it is a sector that is destined to grow.

Most resources – like timber, rare wildlife or fossil fuels – are becoming scarcer.

They represent lucrative opportunities for criminal organisations.


FRANCE 24: Can we say this represents a new territory for the mafia?

Van Duijn: The mafia, in the traditional sense, is in fact active in this field. We have seen this already in waste trafficking cases in Italy.

However, the groups that are most active in the field of environmental crime are far less structured than the mafia.

There is no group of bosses giving orders down the line.

These are much more flexible organisations, which makes them all the more elusive.


FRANCE 24: Some people have evoked links between environmental crime and terrorism. What can you tell us about this?

Van Duijn: We do not have conclusive evidence of widespread cooperation but there are, indeed, increasing reports of links between environmental crimes and terrorist networks.

Our own investigations have only centred on rebel groups, mostly in Africa, who engage in ivory trafficking or illegal fishing.

We are also exploring whether these environmental crimes help fund terrorist movements.


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10 November 2015

'Big agreement' unlikely at UN climate summit: Bill Clinton

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© AFP | Former US president Bill Clinton (R) visits a farm in the Cocle province, near Penonome, 180 km from Panama City on November 10, 2015

PENONOME (PANAMA) (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton, whose Clinton Foundation seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, said Tuesday an upcoming UN climate summit in France will be useful, though "no big agreement" is likely.

"I don't expect some big agreement. But I do think as a result of the meeting there will be more investment in energy efficiency and more investment in clean energy and that's a good point," he told reporters during a visit to Panama to inspect a rural project sponsored by the foundation.

"I honestly don't know what will happen," he said of the November 30-December 11 summit in Paris that will be attended by President Barack Obama and 116 other heads of state and government.

"I can't go this year. But I think that all these meetings are helpful because people who actually can make decisions encourage each other to do things that work," Clinton said.

The Conference of Parties (COP21) summit aims to lay the ground for a pact by 2020 on curbing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change.

Clinton, whose wife Hillary is currently a frontrunner for US presidential elections next year, was in Panama to visit a wind-energy installation backed by the foundation.

The project is located near Penonome, in central Panama some 150 kilometers (90 miles) west of the capital.

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11 November 2015

Kerry says Paris climate deal will not be legally binding: report

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© Pool/AFP/File | A crunch climate summit in Paris will not deliver a legally binding treaty requiring countries to cut carbon emissions, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Financial Times

LONDON (AFP) - A crunch climate summit in Paris will not deliver a legally binding treaty requiring countries to cut carbon emissions, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Financial Times on Wednesday.

"It's definitively not going to be a treaty... They're not going to be legally binding reduction targets like Kyoto or something," Kerry said, according to the newspaper, referring to the 1997 Kyoto protocol committing states to limit emissions.

The UN Conference of Parties (COP21) meeting of some 100 heads of state and government in December aims to secure a deal to stave off catastrophic levels of global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.

The nations most at risk have appealed for the a stricter goal than limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius -- which the vulnerable nations say will still leave one billion people at risk of rising sea levels and other dire impacts.

An effective deal may rely on the world's biggest polluters such as China and the United States signing up to the pledge.

But a global poll last week found that residents of China and the US were among the least concerned about climate change, in contrast to a global consensus that it is a pressing problem, and US President Barack Obama faces opposition from a hostile Senate in pushing through efforts to combat it.

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12 November 2015

Canada PM and provinces to hash out climate strategy

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© AFP/File | Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, pictured on October 7, 2015, pledged strong measures to curb greenhouse gases linked to global warming, after nearly two decades of foot-dragging on carbon emissions

OTTAWA (AFP) - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will meet leaders of Canada's provinces and territories to hash out a cohesive climate strategy a week before key international talks in Paris.

Many of them will also accompany Trudeau to the UN Conference of Parties, which opens with more than 115 heads of state and government in the French capital on November 30, aiming to secure a deal to stave off catastrophic climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

"I'll meet with the premiers... on November 23 and we are having a climate briefing by top climate scientists for the first ministers and for my own cabinet, to be followed by a working dinner with the premiers to discuss the kind of strong and cohesive message that we will be delivering as Canadians in Paris at the very important COP21 conference," Trudeau said.

His Liberals pledged during the recent election campaign that swept them to power last month strong measures to curb greenhouse gases linked to global warming, after nearly two decades of foot-dragging on carbon emissions.

But they have not yet announced a target.

Setting one is complicated by the fact that Ottawa shares responsibility for the environment with 13 provinces and territories that have varying goals.

The previous Tory administration had said it would seek to reduce Canada's carbon emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, after admitting it would miss an earlier, less ambitious goal.

It was panned by environmental activists as the weakest of any industrialized nation.

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13 November 2015

Al Gore hopeful of Paris climate summit success

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© AFP | US politician, environmentalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore is pictured during an interview with AFP on November 13, 2015 at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, ahead of the key United nations conference on climate change

PARIS (AFP) - Nobel laureate Al Gore said Friday a shift in global attitudes and well-advanced negotiations boosted hopes of success at a UN climate summit which opens in Paris in just over two weeks.

"I think we already know enough to predict that the outcome in Paris is going to be successful. Even the text that they are working on, it's light years ahead of any previous negotiations," the former US vice president-turned climate activist told AFP in the French capital.

"The French have done an excellent job in organising it, but nations all over the world have learned the lessons of the past and are preparing for a bright future," he added.

Gore, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 for his work on climate change, spoke before launching a 24-hour global event featuring performers like Elton John and leaders including French President Francois Hollande to beat the drum for urgent climate action ahead of the summit meant to forge a pact to limit global warming.

Gore said a critical mass of social mobilisation bode well for the 195-nation UN summit from November 30 to December 11.

"In every great social movement for change, those who have advocated for the necessary and the just change have faced the challenge of convincing others to do the right thing," he said.

"In this process we have now reached the point where the vast majority of people understand what the climate crisis is all about."

Negotiators in Paris will aim to strike a bargain that limits global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial times by limiting greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.

Talks in 2009 in Copenhagen, which also sought to craft a world climate rescue pact, ended in failure and confusion.

A slideshow presented by Gore about the dangers of climate change was the basis of the popular 2006 documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," which won two Academy Awards.

The latest event he spearheads, dubbed "24 Hours of Reality and Live Earth" will feature artists, scientists and politicians and air online on Friday and Saturday.

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