Climate talks enter final week, with many disputes left unresolved

As the basis for their negotiations, the ministers are referring to a draft text of an agreement that was adopted by consensus on Saturday at working-level talks. But the text is riddled with brackets and optional clauses, making the finishing line of the two-week negotiations hard to discern. "At the current warming...our future is already bleak," said Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga, whose low-lying island nation in the Pacific faces the threat of rising sea levels, in his remarks at a high-level session. Saying that any further temperature increase beyond 1.5 C will spell the "total demise" of his country and other low-lying island nations, Sopoaga called on negotiators to forge a legally binding agreement in Paris. "Anything less than that, we'll signal to the world we are not serious about our work here, about climate change, and that will be morally shameful for humankind...We must have a Paris or else we'll all perish." The ministers already met for informal talks on Sunday afternoon to go over the main issues, such as financing and technical support for developing countries and a long-term goal for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who chairs the climate conference, called the meeting to start working early. Negotiators are working on a universal agreement to curb carbon emissions that will cover several decades from 2020 with the view to limiting the rise in average global temperatures to less than 2 C over preindustrial levels. The remaining disputes include a collective long-term goal for emissions cuts that could show a path away from centuries of burning coal, oil and gas. But with different options left in the draft, it is difficult to see how it will eventually be phrased. Disagreements also exist over how to help developing countries adapt to climate change and cut their emissions. So far only developed countries have provided financial support because they are historically deemed responsible for climate change, but they want more countries now to chip in. Developing countries are calling on developed countries, which have pledged to mobilize $100 billion in financial support annually by 2020, to do more in the years ahead. With regard to the $100 billion, developed countries are now expected to meet that pledge in 2020, according to a Japanese government source. There are some points of agreement, such as making the envisioned pact legally binding. Although countries may be obliged to submit their climate pledges, emissions cuts are not likely to be mandatory. More than 180 countries have voluntarily submitted carbon-cutting pledges. But they are deemed insufficient to hold the temperature rise below 2 C this century, a threshold widely seen as vital to avoid destructive, irreversible effects of global warming. To put the world on a path toward the 2 C goal, the draft agreement envisions a regular review of national pledges every five years, possibly making such pledges progressively tougher. On Sunday, Japanese Environment Minister Tamayo Marukawa agreed with Xie Zhenhua, China's special representative on climate change, on the need for the periodic review of carbon-cutting pledges. "I confirmed the strong desire of the Chinese side for an agreement," she told reporters after their meeting in Paris. The top Japanese negotiator at the climate talks separately met with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon the same day, where he thanked Japan for pledging a 30 percent increase in yen terms in the financial support Japan will mobilize for developing countries in 2020, according to the minister. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said last week in Paris that Japan will extend 1.3 trillion yen ($10.6 billion) in 2020 to assist developing countries' efforts to fight global warming, up from roughly 1 trillion yen Tokyo now provides each year. An agreement in Paris is expected to be a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol, the world's only binding treaty to curb emissions of gases blamed for global warming. The 1997 pact made emissions cuts mandatory only for developed countries. The latest gathering of 196 parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change began on the outskirts of Paris on Nov. 30 and is set to run through Friday.