12/14/2014
LIMA – The absolute breakdown of the Climate Change Summit (COP20) in Lima, just 24 hours after the period expired that had been set by participating countries to reach an accord, puts in jeopardy the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change itself.
That was observed at noon Saturday by the Obama administration’s special climate change envoy, Todd Stern, who, after listening to more than 20 countries refuse to accept the final “consensual” text before dawn Saturday, it was his turn to address the plenary session.
The U.S. negotiator, among the last to address the session, told delegates that the UN Climate Change Convention was in danger. “We have no time for lengthy new negotiations, and I think we all know that,” Stern said. “The hour glass is running down.”
But as the summit went into overtime, many ministers had to pick up and leave, such as the Spain’s minister of agriculture, food and the environment, Isabel Garcia Terjina, who had to be at the European Council of Ministers on Monday.
And there were developing countries like Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua who continue in the opposition, something that sources in the negotiation told Efe will be a difficult obstacle to overcome, because the Peruvian presidency of the COP20 “does not look like it wants to fight with its neighbors.”
And naturally Saudi Arabia and its allies do not wish to reach any kind of accord.
“If it goes on like this and people don’t want to progress very quickly, we’ll have to look for other forums so that those who want to make progress can do so elsewhere,” Teresa Ribera, director of IDDRI, one of the most influential climate change lobbies in Europe, said.
Efforts to hammer out the text at the COP20, as the 20th yearly session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is known, have been bogged down over a couple of contentious issues: differentiation between developed and developing countries and financing for adaptation.
The United States has demanded that all countries do their part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, saying the world is presently on a disastrous course.
Developing countries such as China and Brazil, however, demand that the new agreement adhere to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” which recognizes developed countries’ greater historical contribution to environmental problems and their greater economic and technical capacity to tackle them.
The issue of financing for adaptation is also a tricky one, with the United Nations Environment Program saying in a report released in Lima on Dec. 5 that the amount of money developing countries will need to adapt to climate change could be double or triple the current estimate of $70 billion to $100 billion a year.
COP20 began on Dec. 1 and has drawn 10,300 delegates from 195 countries to make progress toward a new treaty that is take effect in 2020 and replace the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 2005.
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That was observed at noon Saturday by the Obama administration’s special climate change envoy, Todd Stern, who, after listening to more than 20 countries refuse to accept the final “consensual” text before dawn Saturday, it was his turn to address the plenary session.
The U.S. negotiator, among the last to address the session, told delegates that the UN Climate Change Convention was in danger. “We have no time for lengthy new negotiations, and I think we all know that,” Stern said. “The hour glass is running down.”
But as the summit went into overtime, many ministers had to pick up and leave, such as the Spain’s minister of agriculture, food and the environment, Isabel Garcia Terjina, who had to be at the European Council of Ministers on Monday.
And there were developing countries like Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua who continue in the opposition, something that sources in the negotiation told Efe will be a difficult obstacle to overcome, because the Peruvian presidency of the COP20 “does not look like it wants to fight with its neighbors.”
And naturally Saudi Arabia and its allies do not wish to reach any kind of accord.
“If it goes on like this and people don’t want to progress very quickly, we’ll have to look for other forums so that those who want to make progress can do so elsewhere,” Teresa Ribera, director of IDDRI, one of the most influential climate change lobbies in Europe, said.
Efforts to hammer out the text at the COP20, as the 20th yearly session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is known, have been bogged down over a couple of contentious issues: differentiation between developed and developing countries and financing for adaptation.
The United States has demanded that all countries do their part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, saying the world is presently on a disastrous course.
Developing countries such as China and Brazil, however, demand that the new agreement adhere to the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities,” which recognizes developed countries’ greater historical contribution to environmental problems and their greater economic and technical capacity to tackle them.
The issue of financing for adaptation is also a tricky one, with the United Nations Environment Program saying in a report released in Lima on Dec. 5 that the amount of money developing countries will need to adapt to climate change could be double or triple the current estimate of $70 billion to $100 billion a year.
COP20 began on Dec. 1 and has drawn 10,300 delegates from 195 countries to make progress toward a new treaty that is take effect in 2020 and replace the Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 2005.
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