Climate negotiators start work on deal
FINANCE A STICKING POINT; DRAFT TEXT RIDDLED WITH DISAGREEMENTS
With encouragement from 150 world leaders ringing in their ears, government negotiators in Paris were yesterday left to turn the rhetoric into reality and agree a draft text of a global deal to slow climate change.
US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping made common cause on Monday with other countries to stress the urgency of an agreement to slow a rise in global temperatures blamed for spurring floods, heat waves and rising sea levels. But as the leaders left Paris, negotiators from 195 countries remained to work on a draft text of more than 50 pages still riddled with disagreements.
The main sticking point is how to come up with the billions of dollars needed to finance the cleaner energy sources that are badly needed if emerging countries are to develop without relying heavily on fossil fuels.
French President Francois Hollande said he was encouraged by the start of talks that are planned to run until December 11. “It’s set off well but it has to arrive too,” he told reporters. He said there were “two reefs. Either we overload the vessel and it sinks or we empty it and it goes nowhere.”
A deal in Paris would be by far the strongest ever agreed to bind both rich and poor nations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, which scientists say have blanketed the earth, raised global temperatures and begun upending the planet’s climate system.
Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power, President Barack Obama has not missed many opportunities to convey what a warm rapport he has forged with the Indian leader.
There was the admiring essay about Modi that Obama wrote in Time magazine, and the image of them at the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial in Washington, their entourages left behind. Obama’s national security adviser said the two men had “chemistry,” and expressed confidence that American interests made it “worth the investment in the relationship.”
Exactly how much that investment has paid off will become clear this week during the climate negotiations on the outskirts of Paris, where India, the world’s third-largest greenhouse gas polluter, has emerged as a pivotal player in shaping the outcome of a deal on which Obama hopes to build his legacy — or whether a deal emerges at all. So far, Indian negotiators have publicly staked out an uncompromising position.
India embodies a critical tension that will play out in Paris between developed nations like the United States, which are calling for universal emissions cuts, and developing nations like India, which say they deserve to increase fossil fuel use as their economies grow or else receive billions of dollars to transition to cleaner energy.
After Modi met Obama on Monday — their sixth meeting in 14 months — he told reporters that the two leaders had “such a deep relationship that we are able to openly discuss all issues,” and said that he was happy to work “shoulder to shoulder with the United States.”
But in an earlier speech on Monday, Modi said climate change was not India’s fault, and blamed it firmly on “the prosperity and progress of an industrial age powered by fossil fuel.”
“But we in India face its consequences today,” he said.
That India has positioned itself as the champion of developing nations is no great surprise, based on past climate talks.
During this year’s climate change talks, India is expected to challenge the United States on three counts: To speed up emissions reductions by wealthy countries to compensate for emissions growth in poor countries; to pay more to poor countries to assist in mitigation plans; and to provide clean-energy technology to poor countries.
Ashley Tellis, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Obama had “tried hard” to persuade Modi to shift India off those more hard-line negotiating positions before the climate talks, “but failed.”