Small nations demand solid climate change deal

Countries most vulnerable to climate change today attacked rich nations for rethinking the global treaty timetable that would enforce legally binding emissions cut targets.

As delegates engaged in a fifth and final day of UN climate talks in Spain, European nations downplayed expectations for a legal treaty to come out of next month’s key climate summit in Copenhagen.

Instead, negotiators were working on a draft political agreement in which rich nations would promise to reduce emissions and to finance aid for helping the world’s poorest cope.

Such a deal would carry the authority of world leaders who would sign it in Copenhagen. Nations would agree to stick to their promises while they continue negotiating the details of a treaty, taking as long as another year.

The shift – an implicit admission of defeat after two years of tough UN negotiations – follows acknowledgement that several countries may not be politically ready to sign a legal pact by next month.

“After Copenhagen, talking action must turn into taking action,” said Yvo De Boer, the UN official who is leading the talks.

The head of the Indian delegation, Shyam Saran, said the key to success at Copenhagen would be “the willingness of (industrial nations) to come up with significant reduction targets,” and that a consensus by all 192 nations would still be binding.

“We don’t share the view that it is no longer possible. If it were no longer possible, we would rather pack up and go home,” he said.

Oxfam also it was “essential” that a deal in some form be done in Copenhagen.

Some delegates warned, however, that a watered-down deal could face trouble at Copenhagen.

“The Africans do not intend to say ’yes’ to a weak deal,” said Greenpeace. “Failure is still an option on the table.”

A bloc of 43 island nations urged leaders of the world’s industrial nations to double efforts toward concluding an ambitious and legally binding pact during at the December 7-18 climate summit.

“There are no practical obstacles whatsoever. All that’s lacking now is the political will to finish the job. Weak political declarations are not the solution,” said the chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States, Grenada delegate Ambassador Dessima Williams.

The islands, along with the world’s least developed countries, are demanding steep emissions cut pledges by the developed world that some scientists say would limit global warming to at most 1.5C above pre-industrial temperatures. Industrial nations have been aiming for targets that limit global warming to 2C above.

Negotiators in Spain, while scaling back expectations for a legal treaty next month, were nevertheless hoping rich nations would bring firm pledges to Copenhagen that would allow 192 nations to sign off on an interim deal.

Rather than a legal document, the Copenhagen agreement may take the form of a series of consensus decisions by all the countries.

They would include an overarching statement of long-term objectives, along with a series of supplemental decisions on technology transfers, rewards for halting deforestation and building infrastructure in poor countries to adapt to global warming, delegates said.

But a Copenhagen deal will hinge on decisions that can only be taken at the top political level.

They include: carbon emission reduction targets by 2020 from industrial countries; firm plans by developing countries to reduce the growth of their emissions; specific short- and long-term financial commitments to poor countries to adapt to climate change; and a mechanism for distributing the funds that will be controlled by the developing countries.