WHY GLOBAL WARMING TALKS WILL FAIL IN PARIS THIS YEAR

Compromises Make Global Climate Deal More Possible

New draft shows breakthrough on emissions cuts, but developing countries remain at odds with major powers on other issues

A key disagreement involves the overall target of the deal: keep warming to below 1.5 degrees Celsius. Above: People at a demonstration inside the World Climate Change Conference in France on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

Nations moved closer to a global climate deal that has eluded them for more than 20 years, as compromise emerged on some of the most controversial issues facing negotiators at a summit here, even as other problems remain unresolved.

A new draft unveiled on Thursday showed that an agreement is in sight, after 11 days of talks did little to bridge differences that have bedeviled negotiators since nations first agreed to pursue an international climate-change deal in 1992.

“They are obviously much closer to the finishing line,” said Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists, an environmental group.

On Friday morning, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed what many had long expected: The climate conference will be extended beyond its planned Friday ending, with the final text of the agreement now expected on Saturday morning. Translation and legal verification of that text it necessary before it can be approved by the 195 nations participating in the Paris talks.

Perhaps the biggest breakthrough came in the overall target guiding the cuts in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that nations would enact under the proposed agreement. The draft says nations will limit the increase in average surface temperatures to “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since the dawn of the industrial era, and “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.

Still, other issues remain, such as financing for the developing world and how the burden of fighting climate change should be divided between rich and poor nations, with little time left in the talks to find solutions. Hopes now rest on whether Europe, the U.S. and some of the world’s poorest nations can compromise with a group of developing countries that are resisting calls to shoulder more of the burden in the fight to limit global warming.

The developing-nation group, known as Like-Minded Developing Countries, represents the hard core of opposition to the U.S., the EU and other developed nations. It includes developing-nation giants such as China and India, oil-producing states such as Saudi Arabia and staunch critics of the West such as Iran, Venezuela and Bolivia. 

Members of the Like-Minded group didn’t comment on the new draft as talks moved behind closed doors on Thursday evening.

European officials voiced cautious praise of the new text. The new draft is “looking better, bolder,” said one official, but cautioning that more work needed to be done on ensuring all governments accurately measure and report their emissions.

Countries most vulnerable to climate change insist on the 1.5-degree target, arguing that any more warming would result in catastrophic damage from rising sea levels and increased storm intensity. The United Nations says the globe has warmed about 0.9 degree since the late 19th century.

Tony La Vina, a senior negotiator for the Philippines, which represents a group of countries most at risk from climate change, said the proposed language on 1.5 degrees appears broadly acceptable.“We will still seek to strengthen it, but it is within the range of acceptable language,” Mr. La Vina said.

Mr Fabius, who is leading the negotiations, and other French officials put together the draft based on hours of nonstop negotiations among the 195 nations gathered at the Paris climate summit. It is still uncertain if the compromises drafted by Mr. Fabius will be acceptable.

Thursday’s draft also sets greenhouse-gas neutrality as a goal for the second half of this century. That means nations have agreed to commit to cut their fossil-fuel emissions to such a low level that the Earth’s natural mechanisms for absorbing these gases—through plants and other means—can offset man-made emissions.

While the EU and the U.S. have narrowed differences with some of the poorest nations in recent days, much of the Like-Minded group opposes committing to more ambitious emissions-reduction targets or to provide financing for poor nations to respond to climate change. Their priority must remain fighting poverty within their own borders, they say, not cutting their greenhouse-gas emissions.

Thursday’s draft wouldn’t require developing countries to provide financing for climate-change projects in the poorest nations, a provision that may draw objections from developed nations, the U.S. in particular. This is what actually happened in early June this year.

Mr. Fabius gave ministers 2½ hours to examine the text before deciding whether the French proposals are acceptable, but talks were expected to continue long into the night.

Both the developed countries and the Like-Minded group criticized a draft agreement released by France on Wednesday afternoon; “Perhaps your text is indeed balanced—everybody seems unhappy,” Gurdial Singh Nijar, the lead climate negotiator for Malaysia and spokesman for the Like-Minded Group, told Mr. Fabius on Wednesday evening.


The Paris summit represents the best chance to reach a global agreement to limit climate change since nations began negotiating more than two decades ago. The divide between developed and developing nations has always been the main obstacle to reaching an accord.

The EU and the U.S. have has been working to break up a larger group of more than 100 developing countries, called the Group of 77, by offering money and concessions to small island states and some of the least-developed countries. Miguel Arias Canete, the EU’s climate-change commissioner, said the alliance between wealthiest and poorest is holding for now, despite public statements made by the poorest nations in support of the Group of 77.

“The speeches in [public] are one thing, and when you go to the negotiating table it’s another,” Mr. Canete said.

The Like-Minded group includes some of the most outspoken climate negotiators, such as Claudia Salerno, the Venezuelan ambassador to the EU. In a famous incident at climate talks in Copenhagen in 2009, Ms. Salerno held up her bloodied hand, which she claimed had been cut after slamming it on the table to object to the proceedings, and said: “This hand, which is bleeding now, wants to speak, and it has the same right of any of those which you call a representative group of leaders.”

On Wednesday evening, Ms. Salerno criticised the text, adding at the end: “I want to go home, look my daughters in the eye and tell them, ‘You are going to be fine, it’s going to be fine.’

Donald Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate change agreement. The decision was condemned immediately by environmental campaigners and by the president’s political opponents who said it heralded the death of America’s position as a global leader. However, Trump held out the hope of a compromise saying he would immediately start a process to develop a fairer deal that would protect American workers.

Environmental campaigners said US absence will make it considerable harder for the remaining 190 or so countries to reach their agreed goals, given that the US is responsible for about 15 percent of global emissions of carbon and promised $3 billion to help other nations.

What Trump conveniently forgets is that global warming was caused in the first place by the rapacious US companies. Having raped the world, he now leaves scraps for others to fight over.