“It does not, however, set this possibility in stone – it merely opens the door for this possibility. As for the legal nature of the agreement, this will only be clarified later in the year,” she explained.
A new climate change draft text has been reached during the one-week United Nations-facilitated Geneva talks, leading to a binding treaty that is expected to be adopted by the end of 2015.
“This fulfills the internationally-accepted timetable for reaching a possible treaty because it alerts capitals to the fact that a legal instrument could be adopted in Paris,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework on Climate Change.
“It does not, however, set this possibility in stone – it merely opens the door for this possibility. As for the legal nature of the agreement, this will only be clarified later in the year,” she explained.
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In the Geneva talks, 194 countries had to opportunity to follow-up on the work done at the Lima Climate Change conference held last year, which produced the elements for the negotiating text (see related story).
The new agreement reached during the Geneva talks covers various issues such as mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building. The Geneva talks gave the countries a chance to work hard to identify the main choices, put their views forward and add more sharpened options to the text.
“The text was constructed in full transparency. This means that although it has become longer, countries are now fully aware of each other’s positions. I am extremely encouraged by the constructive spirit and the speed at which negotiators have worked during the past week,” Ms. Figueres said.
Next step for the negotiators will be to narrow down options and reach consensus on the content. Formal work and negotiations on the text will continue at the Climate Change Conference in Bonn in June, with two further formal sessions planned for later in the year, as well as ministerial-level meetings that will happen throughout 2015.
“These opportunities will help to ensure that countries have opportunities to work with each other at several political levels – what is needed now is vertical integration so that the views of heads of state, though ministers and to negotiators reflects a seamless and consistent view of ambition, common ground and ultimately success in December,” said Ms. Figueres.
Meanwhile, the successful climate talks in Geneva and the resulting draft text was warmly received by the World Wide Fund for Nature, but noted that “the hard work is yet to begin.”
“The chairpersons deserve credit for their approach at this session and getting a party owned draft text agreed,” Tasneem Essop, WWF’s head of delegation to the U.N.F.C.C.C. said.
“But tracking the difficult issues is yet to begin and our perception is that that traditional fault lines have not yet been reached. Negotiators face a tremendous task to reach agreement on the contentious issues and come up with an ambitious, fair science-based deal in the two or three negotiating sessions left before meeting in Paris,” said Ms. Essop.
Ms. Essop pointed out that there are some key issues that have yet to be agreed on include how governments can scale up pre-2020 actions, the application of the convention principles related to differentiation; securing the scale of finance required in both the pre-2020 and post-2020 periods and ensuring that a new global climate regime provides security for those most vulnerable to climate impacts. – EcoSeed Staff
