UN climate summit: no breakthrough yet, but negotiators still hopeful at COP19
Indian negotiators at the United Nations climate change conference say not much has been achieved vis-à-vis emission reduction targets or climate finance after a week.
Indian negotiators at the United Nations climate change conference say not much has been achieved vis-à-vis emission reduction targets or climate finance after a week.
But they believe the dynamics may change for the better once the ministers arrive.
Union environment minister Jayanti Natarajan is scheduled to arrive at the Polish capital on Tuesday evening to join the talks at the 19th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 19).
The COP 19 of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) came together on November 11 for 12 days to work towards a new deal on global warming/climate change to be signed in 2020.
On day one, Ravi Shankar Prasad, joint secretary (climate change) at the Union ministry of environment and forests, had said, “The focus this time is on adaptation measures, finance vis-à-vis Green Climate Fund (GCF) and technology transfer for mitigation to fight climate change. We are looking at how these decisions can be implemented, how these can be taken further.”
However, so far things have not turned out as expected.
Hindustan Times asked a negotiator if the end of the COP 19 looked bleak and inconclusive, but the negotiator was hopeful.
“Dynamics may change when the ministers arrive. We have this impression that some countries are willing to contribute to the Green Climate Fund. Because the US and some other countries are not fully clear about when and how they want to do it, other countries are not coming forward. But some countries are in that frame of might, they can put their share if a decision is taken about it today,” said the negotiator on condition of anonymity.
Prasad agreed. “There is an expectation that when the ministers come, we may come to a decision on how to take this forward. There is an expectation… most countries are thinking that it might affect the outcome of COP.”
Summing up the last week’s events, one of the negotiators said most of the issues at the two permanent subsidiary bodies at the COP were closed, and only the procedural and continuing issues remained.
“ADP, the ad-hoc working group on the Durban Platform for enhanced action, was the platform where discussions on more substantive elements were done. We also had discussions on the 2015 agreement there. Today (Monday) they came out with some broad elements that can form part of the final decision in this COP,” he said on condition of anonymity.
But he added that not much progress had been made overall in terms of action.
“In terms of implementation of earlier decisions taken already, we have not seen much movement forward,” he said.