U.N. climate talks are inching forward

Katowice, Poland — Agreement on the fine print of the Paris climate accord drew closer Thursday, three years after countries sealed the landmark deal on curbing global warming, but negotiators remained divided on some of the thorniest issues and appeared set for overtime.

The Polish diplomat chairing U.N. climate talks in the country’s southern city of Katowice issued a series of fresh drafts as the two-week meeting neared its scheduled end today.

Diplomats and ministers had huddled behind closed doors, some through the night, weighing every word of the texts covering issues such as how countries will count both their greenhouse gas emissions and their efforts to reduce them.

Along with the Paris accord rulebook, the other main issues at the talks are how much financial support poor countries will get to combat and adapt to climate change, and what kind of message to send about future work to curb climate change.

Last week, the United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait blocked the endorsement of a scientific report on a key element of the Paris climate agreement: capping global warming at 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, if possible. That angered other countries and environmentalists, who accused the four oil-exporting nations of stalling progress toward the accord’s most ambitious emissions-cutting target.

Mohamed Adow, a climate expert at Christian Aid, said the discussions on financial support seemed to be moving in the right direction, though the overall outcome of the talks was uncertain.

Developing countries have been promised billions of dollars in aid, loans and other financial support to help them reduce their emissions and adapt to inevitable changes in the world’s climate.

But the latest drafts offer little comfort to those countries that also want rich industrial nations to pay for damage already caused by global warming, arguing that they’re to blame for most of the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases humans have pumped into the atmosphere.