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The compromise reached by the 195 member states of the UN Convention on Climate Change, Sunday, December 14 in Lima, after two weeks of negotiations and nearly thirty-six hours of overtime is not that which could be expected after the momentum generated by the Summit of Heads of State organized by the United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York in September, and the bilateral agreement between the United US and China a few weeks later
Read also (subscribers edition). In Lima, the climate negotiations skate
TRUST Do THERE IS STILL NOT
“Governments in Lima did the bare minimum to keep the process alive multilateral negotiations, but they were not enough to realize that the world is ready to adopt an agreement on ambitious and equitable climate next year in Paris “, lamented Mary Robinson, UN special envoy for climate. The objective of the agreement under discussion since 2011 should help to limit the temperature increase to 2 ° C by the end of the century threshold deemed unsafe by the scientists of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) .
On Sunday, France, which will take on the chairmanship of negotiations in January, did well. But the weakness of the texts adopted in Lima complicates his task, and shows that behind the stage effects, confidence, basically, is still not there. The Minister of Singapore Environment, Vivian Balakristan after attempting to mediate for nearly nine hours could not escape this fact: “We all share a sense of urgency [to act against global] but we do not trust each other, “, has he acknowledged in a plenary session on Saturday morning before the session is again suspended for a new round of consultations.
A compromise has finally been found. For this, the US had to admit that adaptation to climate change could be treated as a matter of second order. Greenhouse gas the least developed countries and small islands whose emissions are negligible highlighted the cost already accounts for them the need to cope with the impacts of global warming. At the expense of investment in their development and the fight against poverty.
KEEPING PROMISES NOT
In this battle, China, like other emerging countries, have united front with other developing countries. The alliance with the United States has reached its limits in the arena of climate negotiations, which Beijing maintains a priority to show solidarity with the most vulnerable.
The issue has crystallized on the definition of national contributions must submit the States by in March, “for those who can” . Entirely focused efforts to reduce emissions of CO 2 , their definition had to be rebalanced to give satisfaction to the South. The principle of “common but differentiated responsibility” , a guarantee of separate treatment for developing countries, was reaffirmed.
“synthesis” of these efforts mitigation will take place in November, late and without an evaluation mechanism has been adopted. China is heavily opposed to it. This means that the “rappel” on which accounted for some asking countries to do more slips away. However, the text states that the proposals on the table represent “further progress” from the already initiated policies.
If the capitalization of the Green Climate Fund, up 10.2 billion, still the good news of the past two weeks, it does not mask the fact that no answer was given on how to achieve together the 100 billion dollars of annual aid announced at the Copenhagen conference in 2009. Five years later, this broken promise continues to fuel the distrust of developing countries
Read:. The crates of Green Climate Fund fill
WARMING BETWEEN 3 AND 4 ° C ° C
Similarly, the issue of additional efforts to reduce emissions by 2020, that is to say before takes effect the future agreement, finds no concrete answer. The gap between the current growth of global emissions, leading to a warming of between 3 ° C and 4 ° C, and the path we should find, was valued at 10 billion tons of equivalent CO 2 . by the United Nations.
The drafting of the draft of the future agreement of Paris, which one could imagine that it would concentrate the clashes, was ultimately not a real place of battle. A text of 37 pages was adopted. It leaves all options open. The most ambitious as that consisting of set a target of achieving a global assessment of emissions of greenhouse neutral by the end of the century. As more minimalist.
It is from all this that the French, with the Secretariat of the Convention on Climate Change, will have to build the road to Paris. Negotiations will resume in February in Geneva not really stop until the end of December 2015. The diplomats, who usually jolts this process will recover from this new chaotic episode. The text that was adopted allows progress provided that the political will exists. Now, she is interviewed by the Peruvian episode. What is the real intention behind the statements made by the heads of state in New York in September? After Lima, the 400 000 people who marched in the streets of the American city to demand action and a ‘climate justice’ have new reason to doubt.
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