Main talks suspended as delegates from 190 countries admit there is 'no
consensus', while frantic efforts have begun to reach some token agreement,
but few are optimistic of a quick resolution, if any
Delegates talk during a break at a plenary session of the U.N. Climate Change Conference COP 20 in Lima.Photo: REUTERS
Touching down in their ministerial jets or disembarking from their battered
buses, the delegates and activists converging on the Peruvian capital knew
that reaching an agreement would not be easy.
Even before the climate change talks began in Lima, they were contentious,
with all sides drawing their battle lines.
As representatives from 190 countries, accompanied by over 4,000
representatives from NGOs, sat down inside the stiflingly hot tents inside
the grounds of “El Pentagonito”, or little Pentagon – the brutalist concrete
military base in Lima – the difficulty was clear.
Could the delegates agree to keep the world on track for a deal next year in
Paris? Who would take the hit? And what should each country promise to do?
The United Nations says that to avoid “dangerous” climate change, the global
temperature must not rise more than 2C above pre-industrial levels.
But the measures needed to stick to that limit are extreme: in practice is
requires an end to the burning of coal, oil and gas before the end of this
century, unless new technologies can be developed to capture their
emissions.
“We have built our world on fossil fuels and we are trying to get rid of the
fossil fuels. It’s massive,” said Ed Davey, the Energy Secretary.
On Saturday night the talks even looked on the brink of collapsing.
The main talks had been postponed, as leaders said there was “no consensus”.
Behind the scenes frantic efforts began to reach some token agreement. But
no one was optimistic, given the complexity of the negotiaions and the
kaleidescope of competing factions.
In one corner stand the developing countries, led by China and India – who
rejected a draft deal on Saturday because it would allow industrialised
countries to avoid making any financial commitments to help their poorer
neighbours cut emissions and adapt to climate change.
In one corner stand the wealthier nations, among whom the United States has
played an uncharacteristic leading role, urging countries to accept the
draft now on the table.
In the other stand the developing countries, led by China and India, who
rejected a draft deal on Saturday because it did not require the wealthy
nations to help their poorer neighbours cut emissions and adapt to climate
change. The Pacific island state of Tuvalu, African nations and OPEC oil
exporters all rejected the draft.
But even amid the developing nations, there were factions: some of the most
vulnerable countries, such as the Marshall Islands, are unhappy that the big
polluters like China and India would not be forced to do more to cut their
own emissions.
Despite fears that the talks were falling apart, Britain sought to play down
the gulf between the delegations.
“We’re still quietly confident a deal will be reached but frankly it’s not
surprising there’s been a delay given the scale and complexity of the deal
being prepared for Paris,” a spokesman for Mr Davey said
And in the midst of the melee some argue that the man-made extent of climate
change has been exaggerated, and that it is partially due to natural cycles.
But over pisco sours, the talk at the bar created in the centre of the
gleaming white pavilions was all about whose responsibility it was to
curtail their own behaviour.
Todd Stern, the American climate change envoy, urged delegates “not to lose
sight of what is at stake here” – despite his country being the focus of
much of the anger of poorer nations.
The Marshall Islands – the low-lying atoll in the Pacific, which is one of the
most at-risk countries from rising sea levels – criticised “neighbouring”
Australia, saying its neglect of small island states was almost “criminal”.
“Australia is a Pacific Island state and a driver and shaker of everything
that happens in the Pacific – and it is not normal for it to take such a
different view of climate change,” Tony de Brum, the Marshall Islands
foreign minister, said.
From Bolivia came the accusation from Rene Orellana, their delegate, that rich
countries, including the United States, have “an attitude of shirking the
responsibility of the provision of finance.”
He said that the wealthier nations should do more to assist with technology
transfer to poor nations.
And from Russia – whose economy is deeply dependent on oil and natural gas
production – came defiance.
“Unfortunately, again and again, we step on the same rakes,” said an exhausted
Oleg Shamanov at 4am on Saturday, after a fraught negotiating session broke
up.
He added that Russia, was already working on its plan to cut emissions,
pointedly claiming it was one of the few countries doing so.
By late on Saturday night, the talks were hanging on a knife-edge – they were
meant to conclude on Friday, but continued to run even as the pavilions were
being dismantled around the delegates.
Members of representative commissions of the countries participating in the
climate change conference (AFP)
In private many of the delegates grumbled that they were missing their planned
trips to Machu Picchu, while in public NGOs berated the delegates for their
failure.
Christian Aid condemned the organisers for presiding over a “shambles”.
And Jan Kowalzig, policy adviser for Oxfam, said the failure to agree a deal
was keeping “the world headed down a treacherous road towards extreme
warming”.
He added: “The ingredients for some progress in Lima are on the table, but
negotiators need to have the courage to use them.”
For veterans of these annual summits, delays and unsatisfactory outcomes are
to be expected: after all, the talks have now been going on without
achieving their ultimate goal for some 22 years.
At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 the United Nations agreed to the
“stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level
that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate
system”.
The agreed science is clear: avoiding “dangerous” climate change requires
warming to be kept within 2C above pre-industrial levels.
But more than two decades on, and few seem confident that this is close to
being achieved. UN scientists say the world has already warmed by 0.85C and
on current trends is set for 4C warming by the end of the century, as
burning fossil fuels pumps carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Even if tough EU green targets and recent pledges by the US and China are
adhered to, the world will still hit 3C warming, according to independent
scientists at Climate Action Tracker. Such warming would bring extreme
floods and droughts, conflicts and displacement, the UN warns.
John Kerry, the US Secretary of State delivered an impassioned plea to the
summit on Thursday.
“It was in Rio, as far back as 1992, when I heard the secretary-general
declare, 'Every bit of evidence I’ve seen persuades me that we are on a
course leading to tragedy,’ he said. 'This is 2014, 22 years later, and
we’re still on a course leading to tragedy’.”
Ironically, the conference has remained overtly reliant on fossil fuels, in
the form of diesel generators. The talks are taking place in a vast
temporary village constructed on the site of the Peruvian military
headquarters.
Organisers rejected powering the village with solar panels on the grounds they
were too unreliable, while efforts to hook the site up to the national grid
– which is half-fed by renewable energy – failed due to technical problems.
Experts say the Lima talks will have the biggest carbon footprint of any UN
conference to date at more than 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide.
As well as the diesel generators, the footprint has been enlarged by the jet
fuel burned by the estimated 11,000 people who flew in from abroad to attend
– including roughly 4,000 from non-governmental organisations – as well as
the emissions from the fleet of coaches that crawl through Lima’s gridlocked
streets to shuttle delegates to and from the venue.
Despite the ostensibly simple aims, agreement has been anything but, owing to
a potent combination of deeply bureaucratic processes and the fundamental
disagreements among delegates.
An initial dozen-page draft text had by the second week ballooned to more than
50 pages as countries added their rival submissions, while not a single
paragraph was actually agreed.
Despite frustration at the slow progress, Mr Davey was insistent that the
talks were worthwhile.
“It probably the most complicated deal that’s ever been attempted,” he
admitted.
And on Saturday night it was looking possible there would be no agreement at
all.
The despondency was summed up by Prakash Javadekar, negotiator for India. “We
are disappointed,” he said, angered at wealthy nations’ refusal to give more
money to assist their poorer counterparts. “It is ridiculous.”
Delegates on Friday at the United Nations conference in Lima, Peru, which aims to stop a 3.6-degree rise in global temperatures.Credit
Enrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters
LIMA, Peru — Negotiators from around the globe were haggling Saturday over the final elements of a draft climate change
deal that would, for the first time, commit every nation to cutting its
greenhouse gas emissions — yet would still fall far short of what is
needed to stave off the dangerous and costly early impacts of global
warming.
Delegates
from the world’s 196 countries have been working for two weeks here, in
a temporary complex of white tents at the headquarters of the Peruvian
Army, to produce the framework of a climate change accord to be signed
by world leaders in Paris next year. Though United Nations
officials had been scheduled to release the plan on Friday at noon,
longstanding divisions between rich and poor countries kept them
wrangling through Friday night and well into Saturday.
At
its core, the draft is expected to require every nation to put forward,
over the next six months, a detailed domestic policy plan to cut its
emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases from coal, gas and oil.
Those plans, which would be published on a United Nations website,
would form the basis of the accord to be signed next December and
enacted by 2020.
That
basic structure represents a breakthrough in the impasse that has
plagued the United Nations’ 20 years of efforts to create a serious
global warming deal. Until now, negotiations had followed a divide put
in place by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which required that developed
countries act but did not require anything of developing nations,
including China and India, two of the largest greenhouse gas polluters.
By
requiring action from every country, the Lima framework will
fundamentally change the old world order that stymied earlier climate
change talks. But on its own, that political breakthrough will not
achieve the stated goal of the deal: to stop the rate of global
emissions enough to prevent the atmosphere from warming more than 3.6
degrees Fahrenheit over the pre-industrial average. That is the point at
which scientists say the planet will tip into dangerous and
irreversible effects, such as melting sea ice, rising sea levels,
increased flooding and droughts, food and water shortages, and more
extreme storms.
Speaking to delegates here on Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry said, “We’re still on a course leading to tragedy.”
Given
the current level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and the fact
that the new plans would not be enacted until 2020, most experts say the
best that can be hoped for is that the deal would cut emissions by
about half as much as is needed to stop the 3.6-degree rise.
“Nobody
here thinks an agreement will be a silver bullet that eliminates this
threat,” Mr. Kerry said. “But we can’t get anywhere without an
agreement.”
By
early Saturday, delegates and negotiators were cautiously optimistic
that a deal would emerge later in the day, but the language was much
weaker than many nations, particularly those most vulnerable to the
impacts of climate change, wanted to see.
And
even though the emerging deal represented progress on the old divide of
rich and poor, those divisions were still evident as nations fought
over crucial details.
Developing
nations, led by China, have balked at proposals that would allow
aggressive outside monitoring and verification of each country’s plan
before a deal is signed next year. The policy plans and the level of
cuts each country commits to will be voluntary, and the final draft is
unlikely to include a provision, pushed for by advocacy groups, that
would require a public adding of the plans and the creation of a new
metric to show how many more cuts would be required to prevent the
3.6-degree temperature rise.
Nations
that are exceptionally vulnerable to the effects of climate change,
like small island states and arid African countries, have demanded that
in addition to putting forth plans to cut their carbon emissions, rich
countries be required to pledge money to help poor countries adapt to
the coming ravages. That is a nonstarter for rich nations like the
United States, although the final language may include provisions for
voluntary contributions.
“It’s
the weakest option,” said Jan Kowalzig, a climate policy expert at the
aid group Oxfam. “It’s not totally bad, but it’s mediocre.”
Antonio
Marcondes, Brazil’s ambassador to the conference, said he would
continue to push for provisions demanding that developing nations
receive financing to help them reduce carbon emissions and adapt to the
effects of climate change.
“We’re
still concerned about differentiation, in all its forms,” said Mr.
Marcondes, whose country, like China and India, is one of the world’s
largest polluters and also home to millions of impoverished people.
In
remarks to fellow delegates last week, India’s environment minister,
Prakash Javadekar, said the deal “should be able to address the genuine
requirements of the developing countries by providing them equitable
carbon space to achieve sustainable development and eradicate poverty.”
Major
oil-producing nations are also demanding that the deal include special
provisions for them. Saudi Arabia has complained that any agreement
designed to reduce consumption of fossil fuels like oil threatens its
economy. Just as vulnerable island nations have called for financing to
help them adapt to the ravages of climate change, Saudi Arabia has
called for money to adapt to a world in which its economy is imperiled
by climate change policy. Some negotiators feared that the Saudi
delegation could try to stop progress on the deal at the last minute.
One
country that had been viewed as a wild card, and as a possible
last-minute disrupter in the talks, was Russia. President Vladimir V.
Putin has publicly scoffed at the science of human-caused climate
change. But the lead Russian negotiator, Oleg Shamanov, expressed
criticism this weekend of other countries that had slowed the process of
forging a deal.
“Unfortunately,
again and again, we step on the same rakes,” Mr. Shamanov said at about
4 a.m. on Saturday, after a fraught negotiating session broke up. “The
draft is not bad, per se. We strongly support the idea of having
meaningful deliverables.” He added that Russia, whose economy is deeply
dependent on oil and natural gas production, was already working on its
plan to cut emissions.
“We are one of the few countries doing it,” he said.
Even
if those divisions are resolved, much of the success of the Lima deal
will be determined over the coming months, as governments put forth
their plans.
Paul
Bledsoe, an aide to the Clinton administration on climate change who is
now with the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said, “The
really difficult issues — financing, adaptation, monitoring and ultimate
emissions reductions — are left to be ironed out over the next 12
months.”
Climate talks: summit chief warns 'we need to work' as deadline passes – as it happened
Updated
Updates and reaction from the UN climate summit in Peru, where nearly
200 countries are trying to agree the draft text for a deal to avoid
dangerous global warming
Activists on the sidelines of the UN climate talks in Lima, Peru, dress
as world leaders and urge action on carbon emissions. Photograph: EITAN
ABRAMOVICH/AFP/Getty Images
As negotiators haggle and night descends on Lima, we’re going to wind
the blog down for now. Here’s a summary of the key events as talks ran
into overtime.
Germany’s environment minister, Barbara Hendricks, says that bilateral meetings with countries including the US and China leave her hopeful that stumbling blocks can be overcome between now and a crunch summit in Paris next year.
US secretary of state, John Kerry, has warned that countries must take action because climate science is “screaming” at the world.
Updated
Oxfam press officer Ben Grossman-Cohen has released a brief statement with its assessment of the talks’ major debates:
Separate discussions are proceeding to overcome sticking points on
the approach to finance in the time pre-2020, which is oddly referred to
as ‘long-term finance’. Compromise proposals are floating around among
negotiators but these have yet to be made public. The current state of
play is that the outcome will likely be very weak.
Proposals to create a roadmap for reaching the $100bn promise have
been watered down to merely “inviting” developed countries to provide
further information on this goal. This makes it very unlikely that
developing countries will get the clarity, predictability and support
they need to boost climate action in the next few years.”
Deep distrust rankles some representatives at the talks, especially among small nations and the US and China.
Ahmed Sareer, negotiator for the Maldives, has succinctly expressed to my colleague Suzanne Goldenberg (@suzyji):
“How many CoPs will it take for us to really see any tangible
results? We have been going from CoP to CoP and every time we are given
so many assurances, and expectations are raised, but the gaps are
getting wider,” he said.
“There has been a clear commitment of $100bn a year but how are we
really being offered? Even when they make those pledges how do we know
how much is going to materialise? There is no point of knowing that
behind the wall there is a big source of funds available unless we can
reach it,” he said.
“We are told it is there in a nice showcase, but we don’t get to meet
it. We don’t get to access it. These are difficult issues for us.”
“Ridiculously low” commitments from rich nations to help pay for climate change efforts are frustrating powerful players such as India, my colleague Suzanne Goldenberg (@suzyji) reports from Lima.
It was also unclear how industrialised countries could be held to an
earlier promise to mobilise $100bn a year for climate finance by 2020,
negotiators from developing countries said. “We are disappointed,” said
India’s Prakash Javadekar. “It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”
Javadekar said the pledges to the green climate fund amounted to
backsliding.
“We are upset that 2011, 2012, 2013 – three consecutive years – the
developed world provided $10bn each year for climate action support to
the developing world, but now they have reduced it. Now they are saying
$10bn is for four years, so it is $2.5bn,” he said.
Several Latin American have chosen to dramatically increase oil
production recently, putting them in the crosshairs of other nations and
environmental groups at the summit, Reuters reports.
Brazil is going full speed with investments in areas off its coast that could hold up to 35bn barrels of oil.
Scrambling for energy as a severe drought depletes hydro power
plants’ reservoirs, the country has just approved new coal-fired plants
that would be partially financed by the government.
Mexico has recently approved new legislation that would allow foreign
investments in oil production, breaking up local company Pemex’s
monopoly. The country estimates it has some 27bn barrels of unexplored
oil.
Ecuador, Colombia and Peru all have similar plans in place.
Mexico and Peru are in controversial junctures. The former
simultaneously “approved an ambitious climate change law [and] reformed
energy legislation to increase oil investment,” Gabriela Nino, a
coordinator at the Mexican Center for Environmental Rights told Reuters.
Anti-oil protesters in Peru.Photograph: Martin Mejia/AP
Peru’s government is debating whether to exempt certain oil companies
from environmental reviews, a decision that would accelerate
exploration projects.
Guy Edwards, a climate expert at Brown University called the
countries out to the news wire: “If you take the domestic policies of
many of these countries, the rhetoric is still much ahead of the
action.”
Vidal’s update on the state of the talks has had a predictable effect
on journalists covering the summit, which looks poised to keep up its
marathon pace late through the night and into the morning.
Vidal concludes by saying he won’t open the floor: “We need to work.”
“I will probably reconvene some time tonight a new stocktaking
plenary, and [say] how we’re going to move this process forward … Thank
you very much, let’s go to work.”
Vidal, the summit chief, says that today’s talks have been productive, but his optimism is tempered. “We still need more time. We don’t want to create a
process that won’t allow all the parties to express their position on
the document that the co-chairs released last evening.”
He asks the ADP chairs to continue talks for two hours, and adds that he’ll personally help mediate negotiations.
“We are almost there. We just need to make a final effort. … We are
almost there. There is no reason to stop this process, there is no
reason to postpone our decision. … We will find solutions.”
“What do we expect? We want to have a very clear decision, here in
Lima as part of the strong outcome of the COP20 text. … We want to have
the Lima draft text with the elements of the negotiating text as a way
to give input to this process, but also as a way to show to the world
that we are building this process step by step.”
Updated
The co-chair of the ADP just gave a few brief remarks.
“Some parties indicated where their red lines were, what were their
preferred options, and assured their indication where their
flexibilities may lie.
“We continued till 1pm as you instructed this morning, but then
learning you had been further flexible … we continued our negotiations.
He says that at 3pm there were at least 20 parties still on the floor
trying to raise concerns when they finally convened, but that they’ll
have a chance yet.
Summit leaders give update on draft
The summit update is finally underway, with Pulgar Vidal, the president, beginning:
“As you remember, I instructed [last event for everyone] to produce a
new text. That text was released at 10.30pm, so the co-chairs produced a
text first that was shorter than the text producer before that one.
“Second, [it is] a more focused text, mainly on the issues that we need to go [for] more deeply.
“Third, the text [will be based] on confidence and seek consensus.”
“Also, this is a text I am sure will move us forward to a very strong outcome by the end of this meeting, I hope today.
“So please, I want to give the floor to the co-chairs to brief on the
discussion that they have begun on that text. After that, I will give
further instruction on the way to go forward.”
ReasonLima, Peru – The 20th Conference of the
Parties (COP-20) of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) is supposed to wrap up today. The headline
is taken from a press release from the activist group, the Third
World Network. They, along with other activists and envoys from
developing countries, are not happy about the direction in which
the negotiations are going here at the COP. Why? In a word,
money.
The COP was chiefly convened to set up a formal system under
which countries make pledges before March 2015 about how they plan
to handle climate change, most especially their greenhouse gas
emissions cuts. Secondly it supposed is to approve a draft
negotiating text for the global climate change agreement that is to
be adopted next year at the COP in Paris. It looks like a Paris
text will be accepted since it is mostly an un-curated wish list of
possible policies. Nothing is excluded, so every country can hope
for a nice policy gift just before Christmas next year in Paris.
This afternoon featured a succession of press conferences at
which various activist groups and self-styled representatives of
civil society got to throw the moral equivalent of temper tantrums.
I have now covered nearly ten of these meetings and the endgame
always, always, always comes down to a fight over money. The rich
countries refuse to pony up as much as the poor countries think
they deserve. So perennially disappointed activists are again
furious that the rich countries are not making explicit promises to
supply billions in funds to help poor countries. Here are some
representative comments:
Lidy Nacpil from Jubilee South Asia Pacific: “We demand a
finance roadmap—when and how much they [rich countries] will
deliver on their financial obligations before 2020.”
Jagoda Munic, Chairperson Friends of the Earth
International: “The inaction of wealthy nations at
the UN climate negotiations is outrageous. It flies in the face of
the most vulnerable countries and communities suffering from the
climate crisis. This is climate injustice.”
Samantha Smith from the WWF’s Global Climate and Energy
Initiative: “We are not seeing the political will, the money, and
the urgency that the climate crisis all around us demands.”
John Foran from the International Institute of Climate Action
and Theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara: “The
problem is that the neoliberal capitalist economy is at war with
the planet and its people.”
Michael Dorsey from the Joint Center for Political and Economic
Studies and Sierra Club board member: “We are on a course for low
ambition; we are on a course for a Paris agreement with no binding
commitments.”
Pascoe Sabado from Corporate Europe Observatory: “We have to
accept that climate change is not about the climate; it is about
the economy. Climate change is about system change.”
A
leaked memo from the so-called like-minded development group of
countries – basically some 40 of the world’s poorest countries -
suggests that they may not agree with the proposals being put forth
here and so COP-20 could end with no decisions on how to proceed to
the negotiations in Paris. This kind of threat surfaces at every
COP, so it’s doubtful that they will carry through with it, but
we’ll see.
I will analyze whatever is decided here at the COP next
week.
Ronald Bailey is a science correspondent at Reason magazine and author of Liberation Biology (Prometheus).
On Thursday night, climate negotiations had turned into a script for a
thrilling film on international intrigue. A document so far held secret
was inadvertently leaked well before it was planned to be released by
the United nations climate change convention secretariat. That set off a
series of high-drama sequences which by night time, when talks were
suspended again, had plunged the conference into uncertainty.
The two co-chairs of the negotiations and the secretariat had planned to
time the release of the document with the opening of talks on Thursday
morning.
The document was a replacement of the original draft agreement text that
countries had negotiated over the past 10 days. Upon arriving in Lima,
all countries had become aware that the agreement in Peru could
potentially lock in critical features and content of the global climate
change compact to be signed by the end of 2015 in Paris. These features
would decide how the economic burden of reducing emissions, adapting to
inevitable climate change and financing the entire exercise over the
next few decades would shift between developed and developing countries.
The realisation made all countries negotiate furiously over 10 days to insert their ideas and interests in the draft Lima agreement. Consequently, the draft bloated to a 100-page document.
On Wednesday, pointing to the unwieldy draft, several developed regions,
including the European Union EU, asked that the co-chairs of the
negotiations produce a concise version. Several developing countries,
including India, objected immediately. They had become wary of the role
of the co-chairs. Over the past week, they had appraised the two — one
from the EU and another from Trinidad & Tobago — as being biased in
favour of the developed countries. Some had said as much in language
that bordered on abuse in the world of international diplomacy.
As talks came to an end on Wednesday night, the co-chairs remained ambiguous about how they would proceed next morning.
The lack of a straightforward commitment that the draft discussed by
countries would continue to be the basis for negotiations aroused
suspicion in many developing countries.
"It's an old game in multilateral forums. Start with a biased document,
make countries react defensively to put their clauses in and make
negotiations unwieldy and prolonged, then claim lack of time to produce a
new document out of thin air at the last moment. This pressurises
countries into a take-it-or-leave-it situation. You can then only do so
much to protect your interests in the hours that are left," said a
seasoned Indian negotiator at Lima.
RAISING QUESTIONS
Developing countries’ concerns with the new draft Lima decision text
Decision does not respect the existing provisions of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
At several places, drills holes in the principle of common but differentiated responsibility
Does not bring balance between mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology
Forces a review of developing countries’ actions in 2015 itself
without the linkage of finance and technology from developed countries
No concrete measures in the pre-2020 period to get developed countries to increase their commitments
No road map for finance from developed countries
Requires even developing countries to provide finance in future
Has a mandatory prescriptive list of actions that all countries
must take, which includes peaking year and other onerous targets
Doesn’t push developed countries hard enough to ratify the second period of Kyoto Protocol
Loss and damage is not set as a separate pillar of climate change talks under the 2015 agreement
Note: Different developing
countries have differing degrees of disagreement on these points. Not
all issues are absolute non-negotiables for all countries
But Thursday morning held a twist to this old plot. Just as the meeting was to begin, the G77+China group
asked for a sudden temporary halt to the discussions on the Lima
decisions. They said they were working on a proposal which would break
the impasse at the climate talks.
The real reason was that the G77 had
got wind of the co-chairs' plans even before the meeting began. They
accessed a leaked draft decision text when it was inadvertently put on
the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change website for a brief while
and then withdrawn. It set alarm bells ringing. A first appraisal made
several key G77 countries realise that it was again heavily biased
against their interests.
The negotiators assessed that the new document did little to demand
higher financial and emission reduction commitments from the developed
world in the pre-2020 period. It delinked their existing commitments to
provide enabling finance and technology from future commitments of the
developing world. It let the developed countries escape any solid
roadmap to scale up financial support over the coming years.
The G77+China, which often suffers fissures dividing the 137-country
group, came together quickly. As the formal meeting remained held up
they strategised to counter the co-chairs' secret text. They narrowed
down their own differences on some of the elements of the agreement to
present a united front.
So far the leaked draft was being shared only among select negotiators
and advisers. Business Standard accessed and reported on this draft.
With the leaked draft now in the public domain, the debates became more
furious in the gathered civil society groups as well.
When the formal meeting restarted the G77+China showcased
how they had reduced their differences and it was possible to do so
sitting with the developed countries too over the original document. But
the EU, Japan and many others hinted or asked that the co-chairs
produce a new text and discard the original one. Everyone's cards were
now on the table. Developing countries knew well that the text had
already been cooked up.
But the leak and subsequent moves by the G77 group were only a minor glitch in the plan, it became apparent soon.
In a swift move, host Peru's minister designated as the president of the
talks under the protocol, stepped in. He pleaded for all countries to
work together and not let the Lima talks fail. He promised to work with
transparency. But then he turned around to order that a new workable
draft agreement be prepared by 9 pm on Thursday night. To several
developing country negotiators' surprise, there was resounding applause
in the room from others. "We have seen this orchestration before in
Cancun (in 2010)," a developing country negotiator said later. The
meeting closed.
Harjeet Singh from Action Aid at Lima tweeted, "COP President instructs
co-chairs to prepare new #ADP text tonight by 9 pm. Will it be same
'leaked' text or a hugely changed one? #COP20." Another observer at
Lima, Doreen Stabinsky, a professor at the College of Atlantic, tweeted,
"Political theatre. Script got rewritten a bit this morning, but they
are getting back on track."
In a couple of more hours, the co-chairs had put a new text on the
website. No surprises this time: it was a near replica of the one that
had inadvertently leaked out on Thursday morning. But without opening
the floor to discussions, the meeting was shut down for the night by the
co-chairs.
Asad Rehman of the Friends of Earth group tweeted, "8 days no
negotiations, accidental leaking of secret text, secret text becomes
official - voila rich countries get what they want".
Equally, there were others in civil society and among negotiators who were not as unhappy with the turn of events.
Now there are only eight hours of negotiating time left on Friday and
the countries have a new draft agreement to sign on or fight over.
"They have inserted clauses all over that blow punches at the
differentiation between countries. Obligations of not just emission
reduction but even finance are being hoisted inequitably over developing
countries," said an Indian delegate.
An African delegate said they were worried the agreement had nothing
concrete on the financial commitments of the developed countries. "In
fact, their commitments are being reduced to focus only on the most
vulnerable countries. Even African countries would be left out of the
benefits," he added.
The draft agreement has options to choose from in some sections. But
several negotiators Business Standard spoke to said these were false
choices. "It's like forcing surgery on a healthy person and giving him
two options - suffer it with anesthesia or without," said a negotiator
from the Like-Minded Developing Country group.
None of them was willing to talk about the strategic moves their
countries would make on Friday, if at all, to claw back into the
negotiations. At the time of writing this report it was 7:30 am at Lima.
The talks were to begin at 10 am. Two sets of negotiators said it had
been a sleepless night for them. Friday is set for the endgame.
Published:
19:04 EST, 17 January 2014
| Updated:
19:55 EST, 18 January 2014
The Sun's activity is at its lowest for 100 years, scientists have warned. They
say the conditions are eerily similar to those before the Maunder
Minimum, a time in 1645 when a mini ice age hit, Freezing London's River
Thames. Researcher believe
the solar lull could cause major changes, and say there is a 20% chance
it could lead to 'major changes' in temperatures. Scroll down for video
Sunspot numbers are well below their values from
2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent, as this image shows
- despite Nasa forecasting major solar storms
THE SOLAR CYCLE
Conventional wisdom holds that solar activity swings back and forth like a simple pendulum. At one end of the cycle, there is a quiet time with few sunspots and flares. At the other end, solar max brings high sunspot numbers and frequent solar storms.
It’s a regular rhythm that repeats every 11 years. Reality is more complicated. Astronomers have been counting sunspots for centuries, and they have seen that the solar cycle is not perfectly regular.
'Whatever measure you use, solar peaks
are coming down,' Richard Harrison of the Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory in Oxfordshire told the BBC. 'I've been a solar physicist for 30 years, and I've never seen anything like this.' He says the phenomenon could lead to colder winters similar to those during the Maunder Minimum. 'There were cold winters, almost a mini ice age. 'You had a period when the River Thames froze.' Lucie Green of UCL believes that things could be different this time due to human activity. 'We have 400 years of observations, and it is in a very similar to phase as it was in the runup to the Maunder Minimum. 'The
world we live in today is very different, human activity may counteract
this - it is difficult to say what the consequences are.'
Mike Lockwood University of Reading
says that the lower temperatures could affect the global jetstream,
causing weather systems to collapse. 'We estimate within 40 years there a 10-20% probability we will be back in Maunder Minimum territory,' he said. Last year Nasa warned 'something unexpected' is happening on the Sun' This year was supposed to be the year of 'solar maximum,' the peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle. But as this image reveals, solar activity is relatively low.
THE MAUNDER MINIMUM
The Maunder Minimum (also
known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period
starting in about 1645 and continuing to about 1715 when sunspots became
exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time. It caused London's River Thames to freeze over, and 'frost fairs' became popular.
The Frozen Thames, 1677 - an oil painting by Abraham Hondius shows the old London Bridge during the Maunder Minimum
This period of solar
inactivity also corresponds to a climatic period called the "Little Ice
Age" when rivers that are normally ice-free froze and snow fields
remained year-round at lower altitudes. There is evidence that the Sun has had similar periods of inactivity in the more distant past, Nasa says. The connection between solar activity and terrestrial climate is an area of on-going research.
'Sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent,' the space agency says. The
image above shows the Earth-facing surface of the Sun on February 28,
2013, as observed by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.
It observed just a few small sunspots
on an otherwise clean face, which is usually riddled with many spots
during peak solar activity. Experts have been baffled by the apparent lack of activity - with many wondering if NASA simply got it wrong. However, Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center believes he has a different explanation. 'This is solar maximum,' he says. 'But it looks different from what we expected because it is double-peaked.' 'The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.'
Solar activity went up, dipped, then rose again, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years, he said.
Researchers have recently captured massive sunspots on the solar surface - and believed we should have seen more
The same thing could be happening now, as sunspot counts jumped in 2011 and dipped in 2012, he believes. Pesnell expects them to rebound in
2013: 'I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013
and possibly last into 2014.' He
spotted a similarity between Solar Cycle 24 and Solar Cycle 14, which
had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century. If the two cycles are twins, 'it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015'.
24 Comments
Members of representative commissions of the countries participating in the
climate change conference (AFP)
ReasonLima, Peru – The 20th Conference of the
Parties (COP-20) of the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) is supposed to wrap up today. The headline
is taken from a press release from the activist group, the Third
World Network. They, along with other activists and envoys from
developing countries, are not happy about the direction in which
the negotiations are going here at the COP. Why? In a word,
money.
