Nations Plod Forward on Climate Change Accord

Negotiators from around the globe were haggling into Saturday night over the final elements of a climate change agreement 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 nearly 200 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 and into Saturday night.
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In a plenary session Saturday afternoon, the old divide of rich and poor emerged as nations fought over core provisions of the proposal.

A bloc known as the Like-Minded Countries, comprising India, China and a number of major oil-developing nations, including Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, demanded that the deal include what is known in United Nations parlance as “differentiation.”  They insisted on easier requirements than rich nations when putting forth their emissions statistics, balked at proposals that would allow aggressive outside monitoring and verification of each country’s plan before a deal is signed next year, and said that their plans for reducing emissions rates be met with commitments of money in the rich countries’ plans. Poor countries want rich countries’ plans to include concrete pledges to help the poor countries pay to adapt to the coming ravages of climate change, and to help them pay for new, low-carbon technology, such as wind and solar, to replace cheap but heavily polluting coal.  But that requirement is nonstarter for rich countries like the United States.

Speaking for the Like-Minded Countries, the Malaysian delegate, Gurdial Singh Nijar, said: “We are in a different stage of development.  Many of you colonized us, and we started from a completely different point.  Those red lines were not addressed in the text.”

Meanwhile, 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.

Faced with frustrated nations laying out hard lines, Peru’s environment minister, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, spent Saturday meeting with various blocs — from the least developed vulnerable countries to states that depend on oil revenue to fuel their economies — and announced that by day’s end, he would put forth a new draft designed to answer their concerns and would continue the summit meeting’s formal proceedings at 11 p.m.

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