New draft of climate accord leaves big issues unresolved
LE BOURGET, France/MANILA — With just two days left to reach a deal, negotiators at the world climate talks released a new draft Wednesday that drops the most radical ideas — including an international tribunal to punish polluters — and leaves major issues unresolved, such as who should pay to help the most vulnerable nations cope with global warming.
For its part, the Philippine delegation to the 21st Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris has mounted a last-ditch effort to ensure that human rights, ecosystems integrity, loss and damage, adaptation finance, and the ambitious emissions reductions goal to achieve below 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming will be part of a new global climate deal.
US Secretary of State John Kerry challenged diplomats to reach
agreement by Friday’s deadline, promising American funding for low-lying island nations and other countries hit hardest by the rising seas and extreme weather that scientists attribute to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
“Our aim can be nothing less than a steady transformation of the global economy,” Kerry said.
The new draft released by the UN climate agency is 29 pages, down from a 43-page version issued Saturday. There are about 100 places where there are decisions still to be made, including multiple options left in brackets, or blank spaces.
“We have never been this close to a climate change agreement,” said Maldives Environment Minister Thoriq Ibrahim, chairman of an alliance of island nations. “It’s now up to us ministers to show the leadership needed to make hard decisions that put the interests of people and the planet ahead of shortsighted politics.”
Ministers from more than 190 countries are trying to craft the first climate accord asking all nations to reduce or slow their emissions. The previous agreement, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, required only rich countries to do so.
Most man-made emissions come from the burning of oil, coal, and gas — fossil fuels that meet about 80 percent of global energy demand. Replacing them with renewable sources like wind and solar power requires big investments, which poor countries say they can’t afford without help.
A previous draft suggested that intellectual property rights to clean technology be removed so that developing countries such as India could get access to it more easily. That was deleted from the latest draft.
A call for an International Tribunal of Climate Justice to punish rich countries that fail to live up to their commitments was also dropped, as were references to emissions from aviation and shipping.
The document doesn’t settle the sensitive question of whether advanced developing countries such as China and oil-rich Arab nations should join industrialized countries in providing financial aid.
It also doesn’t spell out the long-term goal of the accord — whether it is to remove carbon emissions from the economy altogether or just reduce them.
Nor does it settle whether governments will aim to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) above pre-industrial times or closer to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F).
“It is not bold enough,” European Climate Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said of the draft.
PH delegation With the clock ticking away, the Philippine delegation mounted its lastditch effort to push its agenda in the new global climate deal.
Last December 9, delegation head Secretary Emmanuel de Guzman, vice chairman of the Philippine Climate Change Commission, made a strong pitch for the inclusion of human rights, ecosystems integrity, loss and damage, adaptation finance, and the emissions reductions goal to achieve below 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming among the elements of the climate agreement.
Speaking before COP President Laurent Fabius and other negotiating parties, De Guzman said the 195 countries participating in the UN climate change talks cannot allow “mass violation of human rights” to happen “when there is an option to do otherwise.”
De Guzman raised this as the language on human rights in the draft deal remains bracketed both in the preambular part and under Article 2 or Purpose of the text. This means that the language could still be modified or even taken out, the delegation said.
He said the Philippines wants “good and strong language on ecosystems integrity.”
The Philippines likewise highlighted before the assembly the significance of including in the climate deal the Warsaw international mechanism on loss and damage (WIM), which was introduced to address the irreparable impacts of slow onset and extreme weather events. The WIM was adopted in COP19 in Poland.
Human rights
In Manila, Sen. Loren Legarda, chairwoman of the Senate Climate Change Committee, stressed the urgent need for world leaders to address the climate change crisis as a way of upholding basic human rights.
This year’s world observance of International Human Rights Day coincides with a critical climate change conference in Paris.
As the United Nations (UN) Global Champion for Resilience, Legarda said, “The climate crisis is an all encompassing threat to our basic human rights – food, potable water, shelter, decent livelihood, and life itself.”
“If we are to uphold human rights, we must address climate change, not only by addressing its impacts but more importantly limiting global warming through deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions,” she said. (With a report from Mario B. Casayuran)