New warning spurs race to nail deal
Threat from coal plants hangs over talks as Obama meets heads of island nations in danger
Negotiators tasked with saving Earth’s climate system embarked yesterday on an 11-day race to overcome decades-long disputes as experts pointed to a towering threat from coal.
A day after world leaders pledged to tame global warming, bureaucrats from 195 nations scrambled to shape a labyrinthine 54-page text into a blueprint that can be approved by December 11.
The goal — endorsed ringingly by around 150 heads of state and government at the start of the talks on Monday — is to commit every nation to a post-2020 pact to roll back emissions of carbon gases.
Clock ticking faster
Scientists have long warned that time is short for weaning humanity off its dependence on burning fossil fuels, the backbone of the world’s energy supply and biggest source of these heat-trapping emissions.
But, heaping pressure on negotiators, researchers for the respected group Climate Action Tracker said yesterday the clock was now ticking even faster than before.
If planned new coal-fired plants come online, they said, the added emissions would wreck hopes of meeting the UN target of curbing warming to two degrees Celsius from preIndustrial Revolution levels.
“There is a solution to this issue of too many coal plants on the books: cancel them,” said Pieter Van Breevoort of Ecofys, an energy research organisation which is part of Climate Action Tracker.
“Renewable energy and stricter pollution standards are making coal plants obsolete around the world, and the earlier a coal plant is taken out of the planning process, the less it will cost.”
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama yesterday met with the heads of small-island states, who are among the nations most at threat from climate change.
“Some of their nations could disappear entirely and as weather patterns change,” said Obama. “We might deal with tens of millions of climate refugees in the Asia Pacific region.”
Obama added: “These nations are not the most populous nations, they don’t have big armies (...) but they have a right to dignity and sense of place.”
“Their voice is vital in making sure that the climate agreement that emerges here in Paris in not just serving the interest of the most powerful.”
The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan agreed to work together to revive stalled peace talks with Taliban insurgents after meeting on the sidelines of a climate change conference in Paris, officials said.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Afghan President Ashraf Gani met on Monday amid heightened tensions over Kabul’s accusations that Islamabad aided the Taliban in their brief capture of the northern Afghan city of Kunduz in late September.
Pakistan, which wields considerable influence over the militants, hosted a historic first round of peace negotiations in July. But the talks stalled soon thereafter when the Taliban belatedly confirmed the death of their longtime leader Mullah Omar.
Frosty ties
The United States and China have been pushing for the process to restart, but frosty ties between Islamabad and Kabul have been hampering those efforts.
A Pakistan government statement on Monday said Gani and Sharif had discussed the negotiations while they were in Paris.
“Both leaders agreed to work with all those who would enter such a process as legitimate political actors and act, alongside the Afghan government, against those who refuse to take the path of peace,” the statement said.