France sought on Monday to breathe life into talks for a UN climate pact, calling for a “pre-agreement” to be forged weeks before a crucial conference in Paris in December that must seal the final deal.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius urged countries not to delay consensus until the last minute - a problem that has bedevilled more than two decades of negotiations on Earth’s climate problem.
“The goal is for us to reach a pre-agreement as early as October,” said Fabius, who will steer the November 30-December 11 Conference of Parties in France. This would allow the Paris meeting (COP 21) “to add the finishing touches and focus on the contentious points, working from the basis of a text that is clearly understood by everyone”.
Seeking to add urgency, Fabius said he would host two rounds of ministerial meetings in Paris, on July 20-21 and on September 7. He did not say who would attend or which issues would be covered.
“These consultations should allow us (politicians) to make progress on the more delicate questions to facilitate your work,” he told negotiators at the start of an 11-day wrangle under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
France is mulling whether to invite heads of state to the opening of the Paris COP to inject political impetus into the process. But ultimately it will be up to ministers to give final approval to the text negotiated by officials from 195 UNFCCC member nations.
The Bonn talks will focus on trimming a sprawling draft text. It is currently an 80-page compendium of national viewpoints, many of which overlap while others directly oppose one another. The end goal is a post-2020 deal to save Earth’s climate from potentially catastrophic damage from heat-trapping fossil-fuel emissions.
UNFCCC members have a target of limiting warming to no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.
The pact would commit the world community to rolling back emissions and muster financial help for poor countries threatened by worsening drought, flood and rising seas.
So <g data-gr-id="30">far</g> 38 UN parties have made pledges to a roster of emissions curbs at the heart of the Paris pact.
They include the United States, the European Union, Russia and Canada, but not yet Japan, Australia, Brazil, India or China, the world’s number one emitter.