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Paris climate deal
Topic Started: 14 Feb 2015, 12:20 AM (1,054 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.

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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.

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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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Trudeau urges nations to make Paris climate deal 'reality' in French parliament speech

2018-04-17

Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in the first address to France’s parliament by a Canadian leader, called on the signatories of the 2015 Paris climate accord to ensure the landmark deal became a “reality”.

Trudeau, one of just a handful of foreign leaders given the honour of a parliament speech since 1958, said the risks presented by global warming could be tackled only by global action an implicit dig at US President Donald Trump’s move to withdraw from the deal.

The individual commitments by more than 190 nations under the Paris Agreement are aimed at limiting the warming of the planet to between 3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (two and three degrees Celsius).

“It’s up to us to make this accord in principle a reality,” Trudeau said in a speech that earned several standing ovations.

“Our two countries are united in their ambitions for fighting climate change, even as we pursue sustainable growth for our economies,” Trudeau said on the last day of his two-day visit to France.

“On both sides of the Atlantic we are making unprecedented investments in clean technologies and green infrastructure, stimulating growth and creating good middle-class jobs,” he said.

“It’s up to us to seize the many possibilities for business and jobs offered in a carbon-light economy.”

But Trudeau has drawn fire from ecologists at home for backing the Trans Mountain oil pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacific Ocean, a controversy that forced him to cut short a trip to Peru last week.

In an interview with French media before his visit, Trudeau defended his support of the pipeline, saying “we cannot choose between what is good for the environment and good for the economy.”

‘New era’

Trudeau also touted Canada’s historic business ties with France, saying a recently agreed trade deal between Canada and the EU showed that business could go hand-in-hand with “social and environmental progress.”

The CETA deal “goes further than any other trade deal in the world,” he said, citing “the protection of personal rights, the environment and citizen mobility.”

The accord has been applied provisionally since late last year, and still must be ratified by EU member states some French lawmakers have already warned they won’t support the deal.

But Trudeau appeared undeterred.

“Let’s ask a question,” he told parliament. “If France can’t ratify a free-trade accord with Canada, with what other country could you do it?”

“It maintains the rights of nations to legislate and regulate in the public interest, to implement policies that protect their cultural industries and labour rights,” he said.

The CETA deal had already bolstered French exports to Canada by four percent since last September, Trudeau said, with increases of up to eight percent for agriculture and food products.

Canadian investments in France, meanwhile, jumped 23 percent last year.

“All these examples highlight a single reality: trade, when it is properly regulated, benefits the greatest number of people,” he said.

“CETA is simply the starting point for a new era of cooperation and integration.”

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Climate change: Michael Bloomberg offers $4.5m for Paris deal

3 minutes ago

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Michael Bloomberg says he hopes the US will rejoin the climate agreement

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he will pay $4.5m (£3.2m) to cover the lapsed US financial commitment to the Paris climate accord.

He said he had a responsibility to help improve the environment because of President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the deal.

The withdrawal was announced last June and sparked international condemnation.

It will make the US in effect the only country not to be part of the Paris accord.

The Paris agreement commits the US and 187 other countries to keeping rising global temperatures "well below" 2C above pre-industrial levels.

"America made a commitment and, as an American, if the government's not going to do it then we all have a responsibility," Mr Bloomberg said on CBS.

"I'm able to do it. So, yes, I'm going to send them a cheque for the monies that America had promised to the organisation as though they got it from the federal government."

His charity, Bloomberg Philanthropies, offered $15m to cover a separate climate change shortfall last year.

It said the money would go to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

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In January, President Trump said the US could "conceivably" return to the deal if it treated America more fairly.

"It's an agreement that I have no problem with but I had a problem with the agreement that they (the Obama administration) signed," he told reporters.

Mr Bloomberg said he hoped that by next year Mr Trump will have reconsidered his position on the deal.

"He's been known to change his mind, that is true," he said. "America is a big part of the solution and we should go in and help the world stop a potential disaster."

What is in the Paris climate agreement?

The deal unites all the world's nations in a single agreement on tackling climate change for the first time in history.

Coming to a consensus among nearly 200 countries on the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions is regarded by many observers as an achievement in itself and has been hailed as "historic".

As well as the limit on global temperatures, it includes a limit on the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by human activity and a requirement for rich countries to help poorer nations by providing "climate finance".

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Rising levels of 'frustration' at UN climate stalemate

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

1 May 2018

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Poorer nations are concerned that action on climate change is not fast enough to limit the impacts

Old divisions between rich and poor over money and ambition are again threatening to limit progress in UN climate negotiations.

Discussions between negotiators from nearly 200 countries have resumed in Germany, aiming to flesh out the rules on the Paris climate pact.

But developing countries say they are "frustrated" with the lack of leadership from the developed world.

Commitments to cut carbon are still "woefully inadequate" they said.

2018 marks a critical stage in the global climate negotiations process.

By the end of this year, governments will meet in Poland to finalise the so-called "rulebook" of the Paris deal, agreed in the French capital in December 2015.

This is seen as a key test.

The rules will define the ways in which every country reports on their emissions and on their carbon-cutting actions and, importantly, how they will increase these actions in the years ahead.

But while rich and poor countries united in Paris to push through the deal, significant ruptures have re-appeared in wrangles over key technical details.

The developed nations want almost all countries to share the same set of rules on how carbon emissions are measured, reported and verified.

This issue, called "transparency" in the negotiations, has run into difficulties with many emerging economies arguing for more "flexibility".

According to some observers, the richer countries believe that some in the talks are trying to turn the clock back to the time when only wealthier countries had any commitments to cut carbon, while developing countries including India and China had no obligations.

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Scientists predict that sea level rise caused by climate change will cause more floods such as these in Bangkok

"The EU, US, and other developed countries are worried about the slow pace of negotiations on transparency and other elements of the Paris rulebook," said Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

"And what they see as the efforts of some developing countries to reintroduce bifurcation into the climate regime - an argument they thought had been settled in Paris."

The developing nations are, in turn, incensed that enthusiasm for the $100bn per year in climate finance support from the rich, due to start in 2020, has started to wane.

"It has been frustrating to hear some developed countries celebrate their climate leadership even as they fall well short of the modest commitments they have made over the years," said Thoriq Ibrahim, environment minister for the Maldives and chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States, one of the key groups of poorer nations in the talks.

"If we spent as much time working on this problem as we do congratulating ourselves for caring so deeply about it, we would be closer to an outcome worthy of a celebration.

"As it stands, we haven't mobilised nearly enough resources to tackle this problem and until developed countries match their rhetoric with action our survival will continue to hang in the balance."

Talanoa dialogue

The government of Fiji currently holds the presidency of the UN talks and has been trying to inspire greater efforts to cut greenhouse gases - they've introduced an international conversation called the Talanoa Dialogue to push countries to do more.

But a UN summary of written submissions to this process reflects the frustrations.

"The scale and pace of climate action must increase dramatically, and immediately so," it says.

While the furore over the decision of US President Donald Trump to withdraw his country from the Paris agreement has died down for now, there are likely to be other flashpoints as the talks progress.

One such issue is the question of the influence of fossil fuel companies on the talks.

Some campaigners want the UN to firm up the rules to ensure there are no conflicts of interest.

"The fossil fuel industry and its trade association proxies have undermined climate action for decades yet the UN continues to allow these obstructionist to pull a chair up to the table," said Jesse Bragg from Corporate Accountability.

"If we are to avert the worst effects of climate change and truly realize the promise of Paris, parties must first resolve to eject the presence of the very industry at the core of this crisis once and for all."

The talks in Bonn will run until May 10.

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UN puts brave face as climate talks get stuck

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, Bonn

7 hours ago

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UN talks have been officially suspended as countries failed to resolve differences about implementing the Paris climate agreement.

The negotiations will resume in Bangkok in September where an extra week's meeting has now been scheduled .

Delegates struggled with the complexity of agreeing a rulebook for the Paris climate pact that will come into force in 2020.

Rows between rich and poor re-emerged over finance and cutting carbon.

Overall progress at this meeting has been very slow, with some countries such as China looking to re-negotiate aspects of the Paris deal.

UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa was putting a brave face on the talks.

"We face, I would say, a satisfactory outcome for this session but we have to be very, very clear that we have a lot of work in the months ahead," she said.

"We have to improve the pace of progress in order to be able to achieve a good outcome in Katowice in December," she said, referring to the end of year Conference of the Parties where the rulebook is due to completed and agreed.

China and some other countries, perhaps frustrated by the slow pace, have sought in this Bonn meeting to go back to the position that existed before the 2015 deal, where only developed countries had to undertake to reduce their emissions.

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UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa (L) talks to Fiji's chief negotiator Luke Daunivalu

However, many developing countries were strongly opposed to turning the clock back.

"Nations always give reasons to veer away from decarbonisation," the Philippines' Senator Loren Legarda, who's attending these talks, told BBC News.

"But in the end we don't exist in isolation of each other, and negotiators, leaders of these nations, whether industrialised or developing, small island or least developed, should all realise that we're in one planet together."

The difficulties this week in Bonn have not deterred the UK from throwing its hat in the ring to host the 2020 Conference of the Parties, considered a very crucial meeting.

It will be the first meeting where the Paris deal will be operational.

Countries are also expected to revise upwards their existing promises on curbing emissions.

UK Energy and Clean Growth minister Claire Perry was upbeat about the idea, despite the costs and the huge logistical challenges that hosting thousands of attendees poses.

"I think it would be a marvellous opportunity for the UK to host it," she said, according to newspaper reports.

"We absolutely lead this space. We've decarbonised more and grown more than any other G7 country," she said.

"I've got a fantastic team of climate negotiators in the department. Our word carries weight, and it will still be so after Brexit."

A decision on where to host the 2020 meeting has not yet been made.

There is even some doubt about next year's venue, expected to be in Brazil, after objections from Venezuela.

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UN climate stalemate sees extra week of talks added

By Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent, Bonn

10 May 2018

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The UN talks have become increasingly bogged down in process

UN negotiations in Bonn are set to end in stalemate today as delegates have become bogged down in technical arguments about the Paris climate pact.

Poorer nations say they are fed up with foot dragging by richer countries on finance and carbon cutting commitments.

Some countries, led by China are now seeking to renegotiate key aspects of the Paris agreement.

An extra week of talks in September has been scheduled to try and get the process back on track.

The signing of the Paris climate agreement in 2015 was seen as a momentous achievement, but in retrospect doing the deal might have been the easy part.

In the intervening two and a half years, UN delegates have become increasingly stuck as they work through a welter of technical and accounting rules that will make the Paris pact operational in 2020.

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Poorer countries have become frustrated by what they see as the cavalier attitude of the rich to the urgency of the problem of rising seas and devastating floods and storms.

"The developed world has to lead," Amjad Abdulla, the lead negotiator for the Maldives told BBC News.

"We have a huge void - the action (by rich countries) on cutting carbon before 2020 we haven't really fulfilled that - and we are already embarking on rules for post 2020, that's unfair."

Follow the money

Climate finance is almost always the root of some of the biggest arguments in this process.

Here in Bonn the developing world have pressed hard to get commitments from the richer nations about a timetable for the monies to be delivered into the future.

For many delegates like Amjad Abdulla, this question of trust on finance is critical, not just in dealing with the impacts of climate change but in helping developing countries shoulder the burden of cutting emissions and moving to renewable energy.

"The developing world's commitments are unconditional but there are limitations, you have to face the reality, we are living in a limited world. If your hands are tied up there's no way you can move, you need to unlock and money is the key."

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The question of financing is critical

These frustrations have led China to try and renegotiate a fundamental aspect of the Paris deal - the idea that all nations, rich and poor alike, will take on commitments to cut carbon.

"The signals they have been giving here have not been really helpful and have on the contrary been quite negative," said Ulrikka Aarnio, an observer from campaigners, the Climate Action Network.

"There are a number of countries that need finance for mitigation, adaption and for impacts and China is part of that group and may want to support them. It may be a negotiation tactic at this point."

Resistance to change?

The Chinese idea that going "back to the future" might be best for developing countries has also shown itself in a dispute over what seems the relatively trivial issue of a name change.

The UN proposed last year to alter the clumsy "UN Framework Convention on Climate Change" to the simpler 'UN Climate Change'.

This proposed new wording has caused upset among some delegates because it drops the word convention from the title.

Signed back in 1992, the Framework Convention divided the world into the rich who were obliged to cut their carbon and the poor who were free to continue using fossil fuels.

"Everything we have undertaken is under the Framework Convention. I don't think we are going to change that, it has to stay - the bedrock is the convention, the foundation is the convention. We are working, we are building on that. Changing that would be a very bad idea."

The slow progress here means that an extra session of talks has now been added to the calendar for September to try and make progress before ministers gather in Poland for the crucial Conference of the Parties in Katowice in December.

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11 May 2018

UN takes step toward global environment pact opposed by US

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© GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File | Sea ice floats around a group of islands (TOP R) as seen from NASA's Operation IceBridge research aircraft off the coast of the Antarctica in November 2017; the UN General Assembly has voted in favor of a global environmental pact

UNITED NATIONS (UNITED STATES) (AFP) - The UN General Assembly on Thursday took a first step to create a global pact for the environment, an initiative championed by French President Emmanuel Macron but opposed by the United States.

A majority of 143 of the 193 UN member-states voted in favor of a resolution establishing a framework for the French-sponsored pact.

Five countries opposed it - Russia, Syria, Turkey, the Philippines and the United States - seven abstained including Iran, while China was among the countries that backed the measure.

In September, Macron made a push for the global pact, which would be the first legally binding international accord that would gather all environmental rights in a single document.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley criticized the proposed pact as a collection of "vague" commitments and said it was not in the US interest to join in.

"When international bodies attempt to force America into vague environmental commitments, it's a sure sign that American citizens and businesses will get stuck paying a large bill without getting large benefits," Haley said.

"The proposed global compact is not in our interests, and we oppose it."

The resolution creates a working group tasked with identifying gaps in international environmental law and determining whether there is a need to a new regulatory structure.

The working group is due to make recommendations to the General Assembly by mid-2019 ahead of an intergovernmental conference.

"Together, it is our joint responsibility to step up our ambitions to protect the planet and give ourselves the appropriate tools to do so," French Ambassador Francois Delattre told the assembly.

President Donald Trump faced condemnation when he announced in June last year that the United States was pulling out of the Paris climate agreement, painting the accord as a "bad deal" for the US economy.

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Paris climate pullout: the worst is yet to come

Matt McGrath
Environment correspondent

6 hours ago

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President Trump referred to temperature rises as he announced his intention to pull the US out of the Paris climate pact

President Trump's announcement a year ago that he was withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement may have been the best and worst thing that could have happened to the deal, at the same time.

"The most important piece of good news, and it wasn't a foregone conclusion, is that other countries have stayed in and doubled down on their general determination not to walk away, not to let the US 'cancel' the agreement," said former US climate envoy Todd Stern, speaking at a meeting organised by the World Resources Institute in Washington this week.

Indeed, in the wake of the President's much debated decision to pull out, the agreement gained rather than lost supporters with Syria and Nicaragua signing on to the deal, leaving the US as the world's solitary wallflower on climate change.

This galvanising effect of the President's dismissal of the pact can be seen clearly inside and outside the US.

The America's Pledge movement, led by California governor Jerry Brown and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, has pushed cities, states, businesses and universities to commit to reduce their emissions.

They point out that in 2017 non-federal climate action and sustained investment in clean energy meant that US emissions of CO2 fell to their lowest level in 25 years.

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2017 was the second warmest year on record

In the year since the President spoke, the US has added 9 gigawatts of renewable electricity capacity - enough to power more than 2 million homes.

More coal power was "retired" in the first month of 2018 than in the two years between 2009 and 2011.

This is not just the actions of a handful of people - US states representing 35% of the population are expected to put a price on carbon dioxide emissions by the end of this year.

"If developments on renewables continue as positively as in the past, and new commitments by US states, cities and businesses are implemented, the US could still meet its Paris commitment," said Prof Niklas Höhne, from the NewClimate Institute.

Outside the US, the impact of the President's intentions on Paris has also forged a strong, positive response.

The UK and Canada launched a global alliance of 20 countries committed to phasing out coal for the production of energy.

The UK, Ireland, Norway, Germany, India and China and a host of other nations have also committed to phasing out petrol and diesel cars at various dates between 2024 and 2040.

Many countries have also decided that by 2050, they will be carbon neutral.

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President Trump's administration has been keen to promote coal use with mixed results

"Trump can announce what he will, but the reality on the ground, in the US and around the world, is that efforts to tackle climate change continue regardless and unabated," said Paula Caballero from WRI.

But these positive signals are not the full story.

There is significant anxiety in the UN climate process that produced the Paris deal, that the US pullout is having a corrosive effect on efforts to move forward.

"In the absence of the US you have the phenomenon of a fair number of countries trying to pull back a little from some of the things that were agreed to in Paris," Todd Stern said.

Many countries had "extended themselves" beyond the point of comfort, knowing that Paris was a "big moment", and that the "US was walking arm-in-arm with China," he said.

In recent months, China appears to have decided that it is unhappy with one of the key elements of the Paris agreement, the provision that all countries, rich or poor, must undertake actions to cut emissions.

They want to go back to a more divided approach, where the rich countries are the only ones compelled to take on carbon reductions.

With the US team essentially sidelined in the UN negotiations process and with Brexit pushing the UK away from the rest of Europe, there is a feeling that China is taking advantage of these events to push ahead with a backwards-looking agenda, more in tune with the political mood in the country.

Just this week an analysis from Greenpeace suggested that emissions from China were rising at their fastest pace in seven years.

"If we don't organise the diplomacy in a way that there is somehow European countries (together) in geographic terms towards China, we are losing totally the game," said Laurence Tubiana, the former French diplomat who played a key role in the Paris negotiations.

"And the US isn't playing a very helpful game in shaping the international system."

One key but quiet aspect of the Trump withdrawal that is raising more and more concern is the question of finance.

Around $10bn is due to be paid in to the Green Climate Fund by the end of this year, with the US having already contributed $1bn under President Obama.

As part of the US withdrawal, President Trump has immediately stopped the payment of the extra $2bn that had been promised.

Poorer countries especially are fuming about this imminent shortfall, and are also hugely irritated by what they see as some smugness among the better-off nations, whom they feel aren't going far enough or fast enough to cut carbon.

While the US move has on balance seen more positives than negatives in the first 12 months since the announcement, the waters ahead are distinctly choppy.

The ripples from Trump's withdrawal are only starting to be felt.

The worst is still ahead.

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