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Brazil joins 'ambition coalition' at UN climate talks
by Staff Writers
Le Bourget, France (AFP) Dec 11, 2015


China 'confident' of a UN climate deal Saturday
Le Bourget, France (AFP) Dec 11, 2015 - China, the world's biggest polluter of greenhouse gases, is confident a historic universal accord will be struck Saturday to rein in climate change, senior envoy Liu Zhenmin said.

"We are quite confident, I think with joint efforts by tomorrow we shall have a Paris agreement," said Liu, the deputy head of the Chinese delegation to the 195-nation UN summit in Paris, which has run past a Friday evening deadline for a deal.

France said the talks would be extended, with hopes of wrapping them up on Saturday, after ministers failed to bridge deep divides during marathon negotiations.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius was also upbeat about a deal, saying he was "sure" of success.

"We are almost at the end of the road and I am optimistic," said Fabius, who is presiding over the talks that began nearly a fortnight ago with a record summit of more than 150 world leaders.

However, India's Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar warned Friday that success in Paris is not guaranteed, saying the developed world is not "accommodating and is not showing flexibility" to the concerns of developing countries.

"French President (Francois) Hollande has warned twice that if the developed world doesn't show that spirit of accommodation then Paris success is not guaranteed," Javadekar said.

"That is what the French President Hollande said and is what I repeat."

Both India and China cite as a key concern the concept of differentiation, which refers to the rich world taking more responsibility for global warming, because it has historically been responsible for the problem.

Many world leaders have billed the talks as the last chance to avert disastrous climate change: increasingly severe drought, floods and storms, as well as rising seas that would engulf islands and populated coasts.

Brazil said Friday it had joined the European Union, United States and 79 developing nations in a group calling for a far-reaching deal at UN climate-saving talks in Paris.

The informal "high ambition coalition", announced by the European Union during the 195-nation conference in Paris this week, includes more than half of the countries of the world but is not a formal negotiating bloc.

Nevertheless, the alliance is calling for a legally binding, fair, durable agreement in Paris that must set a long-term goal, be reviewed every five years and include a system for tracking progress.

Brazil is the first major emerging economy to join the group.

"If you want to tackle climate change, you need ambition and political will," Brazil's Foreign Minister Izabella Teixeira said in a statement.

"Brazil proudly supports the high ambition coalition and pledges our political support to this effort."

As the talks in Le Bourget on the northern outskirts of Paris lurch into overtime, decisions taken on a handful of core issues may determine whether it is seen as being up to the task of tackling climate change.

The latest draft accord, still open to change, says its purpose is to hold temperatures to well below two degrees Centigrade (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-Industrial Revolution levels. But it also says nations should aim for 1.5C, a target backed by the new grouping.

The world will aim for climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions to peak "as soon as possible", the draft accord says. Countries would then make rapid cuts to reach "greenhouse gas emissions neutrality" -- the point at which the level of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere stabilises -- in the second half of this century.

Other key issues yet to be decided include how often to review and strengthen national carbon gas-cutting pledges, and when to start doing so.

Among the major players absent from the so-called high ambition coalition are India and China. India in particular has balked at moving toward the higher end of the spectrum on all these goals.

However, the "high ambition coalition" members are not united on some key points, including on how the rich nations should mobilise finances for the developing world to pay for the cost of climate change.

"This move by Brazil could change the whole dynamic in the last closing hours of this conference," said Greenpeace analyst Martin Kaiser. "Missing from the coalition were any of the major emerging economies."

Success at Paris climate talks 'not guaranteed': India
Le Bourget, France (AFP) Dec 11, 2015 - India's environment minister warned Friday that success at Paris climate-saving talks was not guaranteed, saying rich nations were baulking at the concerns of poorer counterparts.

The developed world is not "accommodating and is not showing flexibility" to the concerns of developing countries, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters.

The 195-nation talks in the French capital were to conclude Friday.

But France said they would be extended, hoping to wrap them up on Saturday after ministers failed to bridge deep divides during marathon negotiations.

"French President (Francois) Hollande has warned twice that if the developed world doesn't show that spirit of accommodation then Paris success is not guaranteed," said Javadekar.

"That is what the French President Hollande said and is what I repeat."

When pressed to explain, Javadekar said: "It is essentially the issues of differentiation and equity."

In climate negotiator jargon, differentiation refers to the rich world taking more responsibility for global warming, because it has historically been responsible for the problem.

The related principle of equity says poor countries are entitled to help -- money or otherwise -- because they are more vulnerable to climate change.

Hollande has previously raised the possibility that the Paris talks could end in failure, including if rich nations did not fulfil their pledge to mobilise $100 billion (91 billion euros) per year by 2020 in climate financing for developing nations.

"There will be no agreement... if there is no firm commitment on finance," the French leader told journalists in September.

World leaders have billed the Paris talks as the last chance to avert disastrous climate change like increasingly severe drought, floods and storms, as well as rising seas.


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CLIMATE SCIENCE
Historic UN climate pact 'extremely close': French host
Le Bourget, France (AFP) Dec 10, 2015
The French host of UN talks aimed at saving mankind from climate catastrophe said Thursday a historic accord was "extremely close", but called for unprecedented compromises during a second night of non-stop negotiations. Eleven days of bruising international diplomacy in the French capital have failed to resolve a host of decades-long arguments between rich and poor nations over how to cut g ... read more


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