Global climate change deal said to be ‘very close’ in Paris

LE BOURGET, France — Talks on a global pact to fight climate change appeared to make progress late Friday, with some negotiators indicating that a deal was close.

Negotiators emerged from meetings with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the host of the talks, amid an air of optimism that had been lacking hours earlier.

Fabius was expected to present a new, potentially final draft of the elusive accord Saturday morning.

“We are pretty much there,” Egyptian Environment Minister Khaled Fahmy, the chairman of a bloc of African countries, said late Friday. “There have been tremendous developments in the last hours. We are very close.”

A negotiator from a developed country was equally positive.

“I think we got it,” said the negotiator, who was not authorized to speak publicly as the talks were not over yet.

Negotiators from more than 190 countries in Paris are aiming to create something that’s never been done before: an agreement for all countries to reduce man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and help the poorest adapt to rising seas, fiercer weather and other impacts of global warming.

This accord is the first time all countries are expected to pitch in. The previous emissions treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, only included rich countries.

The talks, originally scheduled to end Friday, dragged into an extra day as the French hosts said they needed more time to overcome disputes.

A French official expressed confidence that the draft to be presented Saturday would be the final one. But Liu Zhenmin, deputy chief of the Chinese delegation, was more cautious. Asked whether the draft would be the final one, he said only if “it’s more or less acceptable.”

The U.S. and European countries want to move away from so-called differentiation among economies and want big emerging countries like China and India to pitch in more in a final climate deal.

Liu told reporters that issue is “at the core of our concern.”

The talks are the culmination of years of U.N.-led efforts to create a longterm climate deal. A 27page draft released Thursday said governments would aim to peak the emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases “as soon as possible” and strive to reach “emissions neutrality” by the second half of the century — a vague term generally understood to mean no more emissions than Earth can naturally absorb. That was weaker language than in previous drafts, which included more specific emissions cuts and time frames.

Fabius, the French foreign minister, has said the world will not find a better moment to reach a global climate deal.

“All the conditions are met to reach a universal, ambitious agreement,” he said.