After two days of intense negotiations and bargaining, EU leaders gathered in Brussels agreed on funding to help poor countries cope with climate change. Meanwhile, a UN working group at the Copenhagen conference produced the first official draft for a global climate deal.
EU putting more money on the table
EU leaders say they have agreed to commit 2.4 billion euro (3.6 billion US dollars) a year until 2012 to help poorer countries combat global warming. EU leaders also agreed to reduce their emissions by 30 percent of 1990 levels.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy (photo above right) says the offer "puts Europe in a leadership role in Copenhagen."
All 27 members of the European Union agreed on the figure after two days of difficult talks at a summit in Brussels.
The leaders failed Thursday to come up with a firm figure for the fund, an embarrassing setback for a bloc that was long at the forefront of the fight against global warming. Smaller eastern EU states were reluctant to donate as they struggle with rising government debt and high unemployment in the wake of the financial crisis.
Yet on Friday, EU leaders reached a final figure of 3.6 billion US dollars a year for the next three years, with Britain, France and Germany each contributing about 20 percent. Britain is pushing to raise the figure higher at the Copenhagen talks.
Donations by some EU countries are thought to be only a token to reach a unanimous agreement.
The climate money is meant to go toward a global 10 billion US dollars annual fund for short-term help to poor countries, particularly in Africa, adapt to the effects of global warming before a new climate treaty being negotiated in Copenhagen comes into force in 2012.
Critics noted, however, the 10 billion-dollars-a-year aid pales in comparison to the huge stimulus packages and bank bailouts paid by many governments in the wake of the global financial meltdown.
The EU leaders also pledged to reduce their emissions by 30 percent of 1990 levels by 2020 — but are still demanding that other leading polluters make comparable commitments first.
EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the pledge "conditional."
"We will see if there is a move on the part of the other developed countries during the Copenhagen summit," Reinfeldt said, noting in particular the United States and Canada.
Yvo de Boer: EU billions a boost to talks
The European Union's decision to fund 7.2 billion euros for tackling global warming during the next three years is “hugely encouraging” for the climate conference process, says UN climate chief Yvo de Boer.
“The fact that Europe is going to put a figure on the table will, I think, be hugely encouraging to the process,” said de Boer, quoted by AFP.
The EU funding accounts for a third of the total 30 billion dollars that the UN estimates is needed for the period. President Barack Obama said last week that the US was ready to pay a “fair share” of that amount.
On Friday, Yvo de Boer hinted at the need for other rich countries to come up with funding.
“We will then have to see what other rich countries put on the table to match that sum,” Yvo de Boer said, according to the Washington Post.
First official draft on climate deal
The world should at least cut its total greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050, says the document from a key UN working group.
A key working group under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) came up with a six-page text Friday. The draft may form the core of a new global agreement to combat climate change beyond 2012, when the present framework, the Kyoto Protocol, expires. However, most figures in the text are shown in brackets – meaning that there is not yet agreement on these specifics. Most importantly, the draft states that emissions should be halved worldwide by 2050 compared to 1990 levels, but it also suggests 80 percent and 95 percent reductions by that year as possible alternative options.
The draft is produced by Michael Zammit Cutajar (second from right on photo above), Chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA).
Even the core goal of the deal is in brackets. Throughout 2009, a number of scientific and political conferences have called for global warming to be kept below two degrees Celsius. Still, the new draft mentions 1.5 degrees Celsius as a possible alternative goal.
Besides the ultimate target of cutting emissions by 50 percent (or 80 percent, or 95 percent respectively) by 2050, the paper also puts forth an interim target by 2020 to be set. For emissions generated by developed nations, a target of 75 percent in reductions (or more – ranging up to 95 percent) is suggested. As for developing countries, the text calls for “substantial deviations” from present growth rates in emissions.
Comments from climate groups vary: “There are many holes - the text displays diversions. Still it (the draft) clearly shows that it is possible to reach a deal. The holes need to be filled through political will and specific political commitments. We still do not know how much money will be paid and by whom,” Kim Carstensen, head of global conservation organisation WWF’s climate campaign, tells Danish daily Berlingske.
More critical is Erwin Jackson of the Australian Climate Institute: “It would be a huge backwards step if this is adopted. There is no mandate for a legally binding treaty that would take in the US or the big developing countries like China and India,” Erwin Jackson tells The Sydney Morning Herald.
Russia sets conditions for climate deal
Russia met its Kyoto Protocol goal and therefore stipulates that unused emission quotas be carried over to a new climate agreement.
The adviser, Alexander Bedritsky, said that Russia has already met the Kyoto Protocol's goal to lower greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by 2012. Russia wants some kind of reward in a Kyoto successor deal that would give it greater freedom in its emissions.
Bedritsky said that Russia is emitting 34 percent less than in 1990 due to the post-Soviet industrial meltdown.
"We are not planning to sell carbon credits, but hope that the quotas would be carried over to a new agreement," Bedritsky told reporters, "This is one of our conditions."
Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, countries are allowed to sell credits for every tonne of carbon dioxide saved.
Bedritsky insisted that Russia won't jeopardize economic growth by taking on excessive commitments on emissions cuts.
Russia was one of the fastest growing economies in the past decade, growing by more than five percent every year before the global downturn and record-low oil prices knocked it off its podium last fall.
Chinese official: Stern “irresponsible”
China and the US continue their barbed exchange. The Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei (photo above) says that the US chief negotiator either lacks common sense or is “extremely irresponsible”.
"I don't want to say the gentleman is ignorant," He Yafei told reporters at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. "I think he lacks common sense where he made such a comment vis-a-vis funds for China. Either lack of common sense or extremely irresponsible."
The world's two biggest greenhouse polluters have been exchanging barbs this week about the sincerity of their pledges to fight climate change.
China is grouped together with the developing nations in the climate talks. But Stern said that when it comes to financing to help poor countries deal with climate change, the US doesn't consider China one of the neediest countries.
"I don't envision public funds — certainly not from the United States — going to China," he said on Wednesday. "China to its great credit has a dynamic economy, and sits on some two trillion dollars in reserves. So we don't think China would be the first candidate for public funding."
The Chinese official said that China wasn't asking for money, rather that the US and China had different responsibilities in dealing with global warming.
G-77 chief negotiator walked out in anger
Chief negotiator for 130 developing countries believes that the UN climate change conference "will probably be wrecked by the bad intentions of some people".
"Things are not going well," a tight-lipped Di-Aiping told the Danish TV2 News.
According to Politiken, Di-Aping had been for an hour-long meeting, but left and delivered a scathing criticism.
"This conference will probably be wrecked by the bad intentions of some people," he told TV2 News. Asked what he believes the Danish government is trying to achieve, Di-Aiping said: "No good".
Source< http://en.cop15.dk/news/view+news?newsid=2944
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