Climate talks shift into high gear

Dubai: The mood is about to shift, the hours grow longer and the already high sense of urgency somehow amp up even more as the United Nations climate summit heads into its final week.

Every sentence, every word especially those about the future elimination of planet-warming fossil fuels will matter at the UN conference in oil-built Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Professional negotiators who have been working on getting options into shape will turn over their work to senior national officials, many at minister levels, who will have to make the tough political choices.

“We’re heading into quite a political process, less access into the negotiating rooms, negotiations will go deep into the night, a number of nights,” said David Waskow, international climate initiative director for the World Resources Institute.

The central question of the talks: What to do about the fossil fuels that are causing climate change. Activists, experts and many developing nations say they must be phased out quickly in favour of clean energy alternatives that can avert the worst damage on a warming planet. They accuse big energy companies and oil-rich nations of dragging their feet by supporting a slower and ambiguous “phase down”.

Even with the hard work to come, some of those who are about to do it have this sense of optimism, especially because everyone has the day off on Thursday.

“We had a pretty damn good week here in Dubai already. Now, obviously, there are some complicated issues to still resolve. We all know that. Nobody is ducking and nobody is going to pretend about that,” US Special Envoy John Kerry said.

“The negotiators are basically trying to put together in each section a relevant a set of options.

And then we ministers will have the fun and pleasure next week of kind of noodling through those options.”