Nations make slow progress towards global warming deal at UN summit

Countries inched towards a deal on implementing the Paris climate goals on limiting the rise of global temperatures yesterday after all-night negotiations.

A senior negotiator at the Cop24 summit in Poland said that delegates from nearly 200 nations had reached a “landing zone” of agreement.

But sources said differences remained stark on ambition, how the climate fight is funded and how best to ensure the fairness of each country’s attempts to reduce emissions.

Delegates at the UN summit, held this year in the Polish mining city of Katowice, must agree on rules to put the pledges in the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord into practice.

This means all countries, must agree to action that will cap temperature rises to “well below” 2°C from pre-industrial times – 1.5°C if possible.

The final draft decision has been repeatedly delayed as negotiators look for guidelines that slash emissions while protecting the economies of rich and poor nations.

“I think we have a landing zone. It is a compromise,” said Gebru Endalew, chair of the Least Developed Countries negotiating group. “It is a bit difficult to compromise when there are 190-plus countries.”

At the heart of the matter is how each nation pays for action to mitigate climate change, and how those actions are reported.

Developing nations want clarity from richer states on how the climate fight will be funded. They have been pushing for “loss and damage” measures.

This would mean richer countries give money now to help deal with the effects of climate change that many states are already experiencing.

Another contentious issue is the integrity of carbon markets when different exchanges – in China, the EU, parts of the US – are joined up in a global system.

“To tap that potential, you have to get the rules right,” said Alex Hanafi, lead counsel for the Environmental Defence Fund in the US. “One of those key rules, which is the bedrock of carbon markets, is no double counting of emissions reductions.”

The Paris Agreement calls for a mechanism to guard against practices that could undermine such a market, but finding a solution has proved so problematic that the debate may be delayed until next year.

“A deal to make the Paris Agreement operational is within reach,” the EU’s climate commissioner, Miguel Canete, said yesterday.