Ministers fail to arrive at consensus on Paris climate deal

Ministers of 196 countries at the Paris climate talks on Wednesday failed to arrive at consensus on tricky aspects of a roadmap to rein in global warming, underscoring the huge differences between the developed and developing nations.

Updated on: Dec 10, 2015, 24:23:15 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, Paris

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Ministers of 196 countries at the Paris climate talks on Wednesday failed to arrive at consensus on tricky aspects of a roadmap to rein in global warming, underscoring the huge differences between the developed and developing nations.

Activists from the Avaaz NGO are dressed as Star Wars stormtroopers at a demonstration during the world climate change conference 2015 (COP21) in Le Bourget, near Paris, France. 196 countries failed to arrive at a consensus on tricky aspects of the deal. (Reuters Photo)

The issues that failed to get consensus were specifics of differentiation, climate finance, long-term temperature goal and review mechanism.

The first ministerial draft of the Paris agreement, however, hinted at progress over lesser contentious issues of adaptation, technology transfer and capacity building of the least developed nations.

The 29-page draft, down from 48-page text of negotiators last Saturday, indicated that a lot of political will and compromise will be required in the remaining two days, especially on maintaining the difference between rich and developing world, transparency and clear finance roadmap, to arrive at an agreement by Friday.

“The draft reflects the stand of all countries and the real fight will start now,” said Srinivas Krishnaswamy of Vashudha Foundation. Sanjay Vashisth of Climate Action Network South Asia added that the text fails to narrow down options on climate finance and differentiation.

Jennifer Morgan of World Resources Institute added that the text showed that the newly formed high ambition coalition of rich and most vulnerable nations was at play with draft providing clarity on adaptation and capacity building.

Environment minister Prakash Javadekar described the next 48 hours as “crucial” for an ambitious and equitable agreement in Paris before heading for a meeting of Like Minded Development Countries to strategise for the next two days.

Admitting of the tough hours ahead, conference president and French foreign minister Laurent Fabius asked ministers to work overnight and on Thursday with the spirit of “compromise”.

Indian negotiators expressed satisfaction saying all their issues including right to carbon space and differentiation in all elements of the agreement were “adequately” addressed in the highly bracketed text.

What could be disheartening for India is that the draft mentions 2021 as the year of review for climate action plans called INDCs, which India was seeking only in 2030. The review mechanism provides differentiation in review but with two two options --- one of developing world and other of the rich nations.

The issue of long term temperature goal of 2 degree Celsius or 1.5 degree raised by least developed countries and backed by developed world finds clear mention with several options. There appears to be no forward movement on compensation mechanism called Loss and Damage with United States rejecting the liability clause. Same is the state with transparency mechanism for mitigation to adaptation with countries not willing to budge from their stands.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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