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CLIMATE SCIENCE
October bid for climate text after troubled round
By Richard INGHAM, Mariette LE ROUX
Bonn (AFP) June 11, 2015


Key to climate deal lies outside the UN arena: analysts
Bonn (AFP) June 12, 2015 - The marathon effort to forge a world pact on climate change now hinges on what happens outside the UN arena in the coming months, analysts said after another faltering negotiation round.

Whether the 195-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) can seal the much-vaunted post-2020 deal in Paris six months from now depends greatly on a flurry of meetings by movers and shakers.

The hope is that influential countries, supported by a pro-climate clamour from business and the public, start to haul the negotiations out of a deep and familiar rut.

An 11-day negotiating round ended in Bonn on Thursday, bogged down in trying to condense a vast and unwieldly draft text into a manageable blueprint for negotiation.

But on the plus side, there was no bust up, and trust -- the magic ingredient that unlocks deals -- remains high.

Alden Meyer, a veteran observer with the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, pointed to about a dozen meetings in the coming months offering chances of leapfrogging the labyrinthine processes of the UNFCCC.

"The compromises are not going to be found at the negotiator level," he told AFP.

"They are going to be found at the ministerial level and even at the heads of state level on issues like finance, that's just the way the world works.

"The hope is that over time this will create a force field which raises ambition and political will in this process and trickles down to the negotiator level."

The crowning conference, running in Paris from November 30 to December 11, will be preceded by two UNFCCC gatherings in Bonn at negotiator level.

France will also stage talks in July and September, gathering ministers from several dozen key parties, and this will be followed by similar talks just before the Paris meeting.

Added to this are meetings of the world's major carbon emitters in July and September, gatherings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in October and a summit of the G20 in November.

- 'Impressive momentum' -

In September, world leaders meeting at the UN General Assembly and a US-Chinese summit bringing together the world's two biggest carbon emitters, will be under pressure to speed things up.

"This (the UNFCCC) is not the only process and this is probably not the best process to produce the meeting of minds," said Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES), a US think-tank.

"We cannot rely on this process alone to get us there, which is why the various types of informal discussions all play a very critical role."

Oxfam's climate change policy advisor, Jan Kowalzig, pointed to a range of crunch issues yet to be resolved.

They included measures to beef up national pledges for carbon emission cuts, and mustering finance for vulnerable countries.

Upcoming meetings "offer the perfect opportunity for high level political signals to be sent", Kowalzig said.

UNFCCC chief Christiana Figueres said "a very high-level political process that is underway in parallel, that is perhaps not physically evident here" was supporting what happened in the climate talks.

She noted the June 7-8 G7 summit, which called for "decarbonisation" of the world economy this century, and an upcoming encyclical on climate change by Pope Francis, which Figueres predicted "is going to have a major impact".

Added to that, she argued, was "very, very impressive" momentum from cities, regions and the business sector on climate change.

"Don't be too impatient," French negotiator Laurence Tubiana told journalists. "We will get there."

UN talks ground to a close in Bonn Thursday, having made little headway in crafting a world climate pact but with a new tactic for pushing the process over the December finish line.

After 11 days of technical wrangling by negotiators, the co-chairmen of the 195-nation parlay said they had been asked to take matters in hand.

In the coming months, they will seek to condense a sprawling blueprint into manageable options ahead of the November 30-December 11 conference in Paris where the carbon-curbing deal is due to be sealed.

"You will have by the end of October the draft package," co-chairman Ahmed Djoghlaf of Algeria told journalists, referring to a core political agreement backed by a set of technical decisions for implementing it.

The co-chairmen have proposed a July 24 deadline for submitting the whittled-down offering.

The Paris accord is meant to save future generations from disastrous climate change.

The draft of the agreement coalesces around limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

That figure, scientists say, offers a good chance of avoiding climate damage that would inflict ever-worsening drought, flood, storms and rising seas.

Taking effect from 2020, the accord will be enacted by voluntary national pledges to curb greenhouse gases -- the emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, that are driving the warming phenomenon.

But the voluminous draft text is laden with wide and politically explosive differences.

They include opposing country views on how to review and hike pledges to ensure the 2 C target is on track.

Just as unclear is how rich countries will meet a promise to muster $100 billion (88 billion euros) annually in climate aid by 2020.

The thorniest issues will ultimately be left to ministers or government leaders to settle.

But veterans of the 23-year climate process say politicians must be able to work from an uncluttered draft text.

In Bonn, negotiators trimmed a near 90-page blueprint by about 10 percent.

"We still need to do 30, 40 percent more in terms of slimming," said Amjad Abdulla of the Maldives, and chief negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States.

"For me it's still difficult to go and sit with my minister and explain" the contents, he told AFP.

Another criticism of the mid-year talks is that there were no negotiations on the actual sticking points.

"Negotiations on substance are still lagging behind. It's clear that we can't continue this pace of technical negotiations," said Elina Bardram, head of the European Union delegation.

"It's really, really going to be necessary that the next meeting in August makes substantial progress... otherwise we will have problems going to Paris."

A dozen or so international meetings are taking place in the coming months, where ministers or heads of state and government can help to break the logjam.

- 'Trust, trust and trust' -

Many cautioned against predictions of doom.

The Bonn talks may have under-achieved and time may be short, but goodwill -- the vital lubricant for a deal -- remains strong, they said.

"We should not be frustrated and disappointed," said French negotiator Laurence Tubiana, whose country will host the December conference.

"The first condition is ownership of the process. Everyone must feel comfortable at every step... we achieved that here."

There were three conditions for success, she added: "The first one is trust, the second one is trust and the third one is trust."

Negotiations in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) carry the scars of a near-bustup at the 2009 summit in Copenhagen -- the last time the world community strove to forge a climate treaty.

Since then, the focus has been on consensus rather than confrontation, although scientists and observers fear the outcome may be too timid.

"Governments are still negotiating at a snail's pace on the way to a new agreement in Paris, and moving too slow to achieve a fair and ambitious landmark deal," said Sven Harmeling of CARE International.

"In the next six months, governments must really pick up the pace."

Climate change: Key dates on the way to Paris accord
Bonn (AFP) June 11, 2015 - Key dates ahead of the UN climate conference in December, the deadline for concluding a worldwide pact on climate change.

- July 7-10: UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) hosts conference on latest climate science.

- July 20-21: Informal ministerial meeting in Paris, hosted by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. Likely to gather several dozen members of the UN process -- the 195-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

- July 24: Date set by UNFCCC co-chairmen for submitting streamlined draft of the Paris pact.

- July: Meeting of the Major Economies Forum, gathering world's biggest carbon emitters (time and venue to be confirmed)

- August 31-September 4: Third round of UNFCCC talks, Bonn.

- September 7: Another round of informal ministerial talks in Paris, chaired by Fabius.

- September 15-28: UN General Assembly meeting in New York, where climate is likely to be a key topic.

- October 9-11: World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) meet in Lima, Peru, where climate finance is expected to come up.

- October 19-23: Fourth round of UNFCCC negotiations in Bonn.

- October/November: Ministerial-level "pre-COP" discussions (date and venue to be confirmed)

- End October: Rough deadline set by co-chairmen of UNFCCC negotiations for a "draft package" to be adopted in Paris.

- By November 1: Deadline for UNFCCC secretariat to report on the aggregate effect of countries' emissions-curbing pledges on the 2 C goal.

- November 30-December 11: UNFCCC's 21st Conference of Parties, or COP 21, to be held in the Paris suburb of Le Bourget.

Hollande appeals for action to make Paris climate pact a success
Geneva (AFP) June 11, 2015 - French President Francois Hollande on Thursday made a passionate call for action to seal a world climate pact in Paris at the end of the year.

Hollande's plea in Geneva came as a UN conference in Bonn wound up with little headway to try and get a carbon-curbing agreement in place for the Paris conference in November.

"I am here to launch an appeal," the French leader told an International Labour Organization summit in Geneva on climate change and its implications for labour, businesses and communities.

"We need the full engagement of our social partners," he said.

"It's in the interest of the planet, of companies, of economic development and of social progress."

The Paris accord is meant to save future generations from disastrous climate change by limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

That figure, scientists say, offers a good chance of avoiding climate damage that would inflict ever-worsening drought, flood, storms and rising seas.

"Fighting climate change does not in any way impact on jobs," said Hollande, adding that fears expressed by both developing and developed countries were groundless and actually such action would create more employment.

"It is because we are creating new rules on behaviour, production, transport and consumption... that we will create more activity, investment and have higher growth," he said.

He said 60 million new jobs could be created in the next two decades due to "green growth".


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