Climate change funding plan agreed
BONN: Top-level talks on climate change in the western German city of Bonn proved fruitful as officials agreed on funding after a night of drawn-out negotiations.
Officials from 195 nations, from major industrial powerhouses to tiny island states, agreed on various funding issues at the end of a session that lasted until yesterday morning.
The participating countries cleared the way for the Adaptation Fund, which was established as part of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 to finance projects in developing countries, to become part of the 2015 Paris accord. The fund provides financial assistance to developing countries vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change.
How to finance projects for poor countries to cope with global warming was a main sticking point at the talks. The delegates drafted rules to implement the Paris accord, including how CO² emissions are to be measured and reported in the future.
Berlin has co-hosted the Bonn conference with the Pacific island state of Fiji. Along with Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, Fiji faces an existential threat from global warming as water levels rise.
Under the Paris agreement, signatory nations are committed to reducing global warming over the longer term to well below 2ºc above pre-industrial levels. – DPA