2013 SkS News Bulletin #18: Warsaw Climate Talks

As the Warsaw climate talks end, the hard work is just beginning
Ban Ki-Moon scolds rich countries backtracking on climate
Cities take meaningful climate action as nations lag
EU climate chief says UN talks hinge on 2015 deal
Principles of global deal agreed on after deadlock over 'contributions'
Rich vs poor deadlock broken at UN climate talks
South scores 11th-hour win on climate loss and damage
Understanding Warsaw: capitalism, climate change and neocolonialism
US and China must act on climate change rhetoric, says German minister
Warsaw climate talks end with compromise
Warsaw climate talks leave much work to do for 2015 deal
Warsaw climate talks set 2015 target for plans to curb emissions

As the Warsaw climate talks end, the hard work is just beginning

Weary delegates trudging home from an exhausting and sleep-deprived fortnight of climate change talks in Warsaw may be unwilling to acknowledge it, but the hard work is just beginning. Like schoolchildren after a packed day of lessons, they have been sent back to their national capitals to "do their homework".

By the first quarter of 2015, countries must come forward with their "contributions" to global reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, that will come into force from 2020.

Those contributions – not the stronger "commitments" wanted by the developed countries – will be the centrepiece of any new worldwide agreement on climate change, scheduled to be struck in Paris in late 2015. They could take the form of curbs to the future growth in emissions, in the case of developing countries, and absolute reductions much tougher than those agreed up to 2020, for the developed contingent.

Ban Ki-Moon scolds rich countries backtracking on climate

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon lashed out at rich nations that are watering down commitments to fight global warming, citing the typhoon that devastated the Philippines.

Some developed countries “that are supposed to be taking leadership are now backtracking,” Ban said at UN climate talks in Warsaw today. “That’s quite disappointing. We have to take urgent action.”

The comments were meant to goad envoys from almost 190 nations at the meeting to step up their efforts to cut fossil-fuel emissions blamed for damaging the atmosphere. For the first time since the UN-led discussions started in 1992, richer nations led by Japan, Canada and Australia have stepped away from promises to rein in emissions.

Cities take meaningful climate action as nations lag

Canada and every other rich country need to crash their CO2 emissions 10% per year starting in 2014 to have any hopes of ensuring a not-super-dangerous climate for our grandchildren, said Kevin Anderson of Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester.

"We can still do 2C but not the way we're going," Anderson said on the sidelines of the UN climate talks, in Warsaw, Poland.

Anderson wasn't just referring to the lengthy-and-acronym-laden COP 19 process held inside Warsaw's 58,000-seat soccer stadium. It's too late for any normal approaches to emissions reductions. Preventing climate disaster requires a radical measures and our economic system is not up to the task he said.

"Massive amounts of capital needs to be directed towards a low-carbon future straight away."

EU climate chief says UN talks hinge on 2015 deal

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — After another U.N.climate conference gave only modest results, European Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard says the process needs to provide a "substantial answer" to global warming in two years to remain relevant.

Even if it succeeds, it's worth reconsidering whether the international confabs need to be held every year, and whether the scope of each session should be narrower, Hedegaard told The Associated Press on Sunday.

"Maybe it would be time now to think if there should be themes for the conferences so that not each conference is about everything," she said in a telephone interview.

In two decades, the U.N. talks have failed to provide a cure to the world's fever. Heat-trapping carbon emissions that scientists say are warming the planet are growing each year as most countries still depend on coal and oil to fuel their economies.

Principles of global deal agreed on after deadlock over 'contributions'

Negotiators from about 195 countries have reached consensus on some of the cornerstones of an ambitious climate pact to combat global warming.

Governments agreed at talks in Poland that a new deal would consist of a patchwork of national contributions to curb emissions that could blur a 20-year-old distinction between the obligations of rich and poor nations.

They are aiming for a new global deal to be signed in Paris in 2015 to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set targets for developed countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.

Rich vs poor deadlock broken at UN climate talks

WARSAW (Reuters) - Almost 200 nations kept a plan to reach a new U.N. climate pact in 2015 alive on Saturday when rich and poor countries reached a compromise on sharing out the efforts needed to slow global warming.

A two-week negotiation in Warsaw had been due to end on Friday, but was blocked over a timetable for the first U.N. climate accord that would set greenhouse gas emissions requirements for all nations. The pact is due to be agreed in 2015 and come into force after 2020.

Negotiators finally agreed that all countries should work to curb emissions - a process described in the jargon as "intended nationally determined contributions" - as soon as possible and ideally by the first quarter of 2015.

The agreement ended deadlock between rich and poor about sharing out the burden of limiting emissions blamed for causing more heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising sea levels.

South scores 11th-hour win on climate loss and damage

The U.N. climate talks in Warsaw ended in dramatic fashion Saturday evening in what looked like a schoolyard fight with a mob of dark-suited supporters packed around the weary combatants, Todd Stern of the United States and Sai Navoti of Fiji representing G77 nations.

At issue in this classic North versus South battle was the creation of a third pillar of a new climate treaty to be finalised in 2015. Countries of the South, with 80 percent of the world’s people, finally won, creating a loss and damage pillar to go with the mitigation (emissions reduction) and adaptation pillars.

Understanding Warsaw: capitalism, climate change and neocolonialism

The contradictions of world affairs are shifting into sharp relief in Warsaw. As the denouement of the climate conference approaches, political fissures are appearing that even the most diplomatic and experienced of civil service soothers are unable to paper over. The fractured lives and incendiary event of Typhoon Haiyan have been tossed into the most business-friendly COP yet.

The pain and suffering of hundreds of thousands of Filipinos, and the anger of the Filipino delegation, screams for a rebalancing of global priorities for which the rich countries, intent on securing more get-out clauses than there are exits to the Norodowy Stadium, had not bargained. Commenting on Barack Obama's supposedly positive climate action plan, Lucille Sering, secretary of the Climate Change Commission of the Philippines, disputed its impact: "Somehow, when they negotiate, they always find some way to excuse themselves from doing anything. ... It's always either they can't do this or they can't do that."

US and China must act on climate change rhetoric, says German minister

Disappointed by the lack of significant breakthroughs, Altmaier demanded concrete action on climate change from bigger industrialised nations ahead of a crunch meeting in Paris in 2015.

Warsaw climate talks end with compromise

At the end, everything hung on one word. Developing countries wanted to exclude the word "under" from the climate conference's final report.

Countries like the Philippines and Bangladesh did not want to accept that the new international "loss and damage mechanism," created in Warsaw to deal with weather disasters made worse by climate change, would be established "under" an existing framework for countries to adapt to the effects of climate change.

"We must move beyond this word," said the delegate from Fiji, speaking on behalf of all the developing and emerging nations.

Warsaw climate talks leave much work to do for 2015 deal

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - In the wake of the Warsaw climate talks, policy experts and activists agree there is a lot of work still to do if an effective global climate deal is to be reached in 2015.

Most environment and development groups - some of whom last week left the meeting in frustration - criticised backsliding on targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions by Japan and potentially Australia, as well as a lack of clarity on how emissions reductions and large-scale climate finance are to be ramped up in the coming years.

Many gave a cautious welcome to the establishment of a new international mechanism to help vulnerable countries cope with losses and damage caused by more extreme weather and slower climate-linked changes such as creeping deserts, rising seas and ocean acidification.

Warsaw climate talks set 2015 target for plans to curb emissions

Governments around the world have just over a year in which to set out their targets on curbing greenhouse gas emissions from 2020, after marathon overnight climate change talks in Warsaw produced a partial deal.

Under the agreement, settled in the early hours of Sunday morning after more than 36 hours of non-stop negotiations, countries have until the first quarter of 2015 to publish their plans. This process is seen as essential to achieving a new global deal on emissions at a crunch conference in Paris in late 2015, for which the fortnight-long Warsaw conference was supposed to lay the groundwork.

"Warsaw has set a pathway for governments to work on a draft text of a new universal climate agreement, an essential step to reach a final agreement in Paris, in 2015," said Marcin Korolec, the Polish host of the conference, who was demoted from environment minister to climate envoy during the talks.