That’s all for today, folks, thanks for reading. Negotiators are heading in to closed overnight meetings, so we’ll restart out live coverage on Friday morning to see if the nearly 200 governments here in Paris can agree a deal that’ll keep dangerous global warming in check.
See you then.
Tim Gore, Oxfam’s head of policy, says the “main area of progress are definitely on finance. That seems to be a big step forward. There are some strong changes to the text that will increase finance from rich countries towards the $100bn target for 2020.”
He notes, with a raised eyebrow, that human rights have been purged from the text completely just one day after gender equality was stripped.
On loss and damage - which could open rich countries up to compensation claims for climate change related disasters - Gore said the language was “legalistic”. Which means it will likely be argued over “not just tonight, but for some years to come” if it stays the same in a ratified agreement.
Gore said the high ambition coalition, which emerged this week, seemed to have had little impact on the text.
He said the coalition had wanted to focus on the “ratchet mechanism”, which will make the agreement stronger over the coming years.
“So far we can’t see much reflection of that in the text,” he said.
ActionAid, a South Africa-based development NGO, is not impressed by the new text. Their chief executive, Adriano Campolina, said:
In the closing hours of the Paris talks we have been presented with a draft deal that denies the world justice.
By including a clause for no future claim of compensation and liability, the US has ensured people suffering from the disastrous impacts of climate change will never be able to seek the justice owed to them.
This unfair and unjust draft deal won’t face up to the realities of climate change and will only serve to widen the chasm between rich and poor. Rich countries have a responsibility to ensure a fair global deal for everyone, not just themselves, and as we move into these final hours of negotiations poorer countries must not settle for anything less.
“I think, I hope, that at the end of this night we will have a final text tomorrow, the text official, that will permit a universal agreement on climate change,” Fabius told the Guardian’s Suzanne Goldenberg and reporters.
“We are much closer,” he said.
Goldenberg also reports comments by Christiana Figueres, the UN climate chief, said:
The president has been able to gather the fruits of emerging consensus, emerging ideas that have been coming forward over the last 24 hours and been able to crystallise them in the text that he has just given to parties....
Our sense is the draft text is still incomplete because it doesn’t close all the issues, the political crunch issues, as expected in any negotiation, remain open: differentiation, finance, and certain aspects of ambition and transparency. However it is already pointing towards an agreement that is ambitious, that is fair and has the transparency of implementation over the few decades that the agreement will last...so a very very good start for governments to go back into regional groups, digest the maturity of the text and begin among peers...they know that the president would like to close this tomorrow he is running a tight ship...less than 24 hours to close they hve been considered this for a few years...the final push still remains so the president just last night has sent them back to work.
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The EU won’t be happy with this, but for the second time shipping and aviation - responsible for around 5% of global emissions but growing rapidly - have been left out of the draft Paris deal. It seems unlikely at this stage that they will reappear.
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Negotiators appear to have opted for the weakest language around a long-term goal for phasing out fossil fuels.
Yesterday’s text had options for specific dates for carbon cuts, and even specific percentages for how much emissions should be cut:
Parties collectively aim to reach the global temperature goal referred to in Article 2 through [a peaking of global greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible, recognizing that peaking requires deeper cuts of emissions of developed countries and will be longer for developing countries; rapid reductions thereafter to [40–70 per cent][70–95 per cent] below 2010 levels by 2050; toward achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions [by the end][after the middle] of the century] informed by best available science, on the basis of equity and in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication
By contrast, today’s text only has woolly language about cutting emissions as fast as possible, with no time scale or numbers:
In order to achieve the long-term global temperature goal set in Article 2 of this Agreement, Parties aim to reach the peaking of greenhouse house gas emissions as soon as possible, recognizing that peaking will take longer for developing country Parties, and to undertake rapid reductions thereafter towards reaching greenhouse gas emissions neutrality in the second half of the century on the basis of equity and guided by science in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication.
Green group 350.org’s snap reaction to the latest draft deal: “The latest draft text has a lot of aspirational language, the real test will be what it means on the ground.”
Less disagreement in new text
Those marathon overnight talks through as late as 7am this morning have yielded one obvious success: much less of the new text is marked as in disagreement.
There were 361 sections in the brackets that denote disagreement on Wednesday’s text. That’s now down to 50, according to a team that have been tracking the text.
#breakthrough on new draft Paris Outcome: 18,815 words. 50 brackets. 13 options. #COP21 #GettingClose
— Paris Agreement News (@ParisAgreement) December 10, 2015
Tougher 1.5C warming ambition makes it into 'clean' text
The new text says:
Hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C, recognizing that this would significantly reduce risks and impacts of climate change
This is the halfway house out of three options that were previously undecided on. One of those said the target should just be 1.5C, the other said it should be 2C without reference to 1.5C.
Whether it will be ambitious enough for observers and delegates remains to be seen.
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New draft Paris climate agreement published
It was published about 30 seconds ago on the UN site.
Expect an update shortly on what’s new, and what the reaction is.
Fabius: I think we will have a deal on Friday
Fabius says he will lead meetings of negotiators from 11.30pm overnight to hash out “compromises” and “landing zones”.
“I think I will be able to present final text tomorrow,” he said. “I think, dear friends, that we will make it.”
Differentiation, finance and ambition are still in brackets (disagreement), says Fabius, of new text, which we’re expecting when we finishes talking.
New text is longer, says Fabius.
“As you will see this new draft is slightly longer than the one you had yesterday.”
Overnight talks yielded progress, says Faius
“It was a very long night of work. A very intensive night. I know that we all worked extremely hard. But I know that this allowed us to make progress,” says the French foreign minister of talks through the night after a draft text was published on Wednesday.
Brazil says that the Paris deal is essentially done - at a political level. Here’s Suzanne Goldenberg on the state of play on negotiations here in Le Bourget. A new draft text is expected any time now.
Governments are moving closer to a strong climate change deal but have stumbled in translating political goodwill into the dry language of diplomatic agreements, according to Izabella Teixeira, Brazil’s environment minister.
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Teixeira said she was confident countries would eventually arrive at an agreement strong enough to avoid dangerous climate change.
“The agreement is done at the political level,” Teixeira told the Guardian. “Everyone knows: OK, we can do this. What is not done yet is the language: how we can translate this common understanding about the next steps, and the progress to a flexible and transparent process, from political language into agreement language. This is the challenge we have today.”
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OECD: It's inappropriate to say nothing is agreed until everything is agreed
Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the OECD, has told the Guardian that the concept of “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed” - often cited at these talks - is inappropriate to the discussions in hand.
The so-called “single undertaking” - by which there can be no agreement on any parts of a potential deal until the entire deal has been wrapped up - was a feature of the Doha round of World Trade Organisation talks, which were marked by fractious disagreements and failure to come to robust agreements.It has since been adopted as a mantra at many international discussions.
But Gurria thinks it will prove a hindrance at the Paris climate summit, because the deal incorporates many strands that could be resolved before a final deal.
“This idea - nothing is agreed until everything is agreed - is not conducive or constructive in this context. There are things that are not necessarily related [under discussion]. Institutions, regulations - decisions on these are quite different. Or [the question of the] ambition [on cutting carbon].”
He called for more “practical” ways of solving the remaining issues.
Europe’s climate change chief is okay with loss and damage (see more on what that’s all about here) in the text but reiterated his calls this afternoon for shipping and emissions to be in any Paris climate deal.
Loss & Damage: we acknowledge its importance and support separate placement from adaption on its own merits https://t.co/RmeKCtqqUG #COP21
— Miguel Arias Cañete (@MAC_europa) December 10, 2015
Shipping and aviation MUST be included the final deal. These sectors can't be off the radar. My presser today https://t.co/RmeKCtqqUG #COP21
— Miguel Arias Cañete (@MAC_europa) December 10, 2015
Kapow! The climate talks don’t just produce agreements on how governments will cut emissions. Today has seen the birth of a climate change comic, produced with Spiderman creator and comics legend.
It’s not exactly subtle - check out the segue from a child’s asthma inhaler to climate change below - but you can view it online here.
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New draft delayed by 6 hours from original schedule
9pm is the new 3pm and 7pm. That’s when the Paris Committee, which is marshalling the draft deal through its final stages, is now saying it will next hold a plenary. It’s also expected to be when a new text appears. There is some speculation that it might be the first without brackets - denoting disagreement – but let’s wait and see.
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Brazil is confident the text to be published tonight “will allow us to move forward and reach agreement”.
The Paris climate talks have entered a period of diplomatic attrition, with round the clock negotiations inching towards a deal without forcing decisions in a way that causes a walk-out or breaks down the goodwill the French presidency has created.
After the French released the previous draft text Wednesday night, countries responded in a formal negotiating session until midnight and then met through the night until Thursday morning in two less formal meetings known as indabas (a Zulu word for meeting).
Each indaba had seats for about 80 negotiators, with more crowding in at the back. One, chaired by French foreign minister Laurent Fabius met until 5am Thursday. A second, chaired by the Peruvian environment minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal met until 8am.
According to veteran negotiators the purpose of the indabas is primarily to ensure that every country feels their views have been heard.
“They spend about 80% of their time repeating their previous positions, maybe 10% outlining new positions and only about 10% of the time compromising,” said a negotiator who participated in one of the meetings.
US secretary of state John Kerry turned up at the Fabius-chaired meeting around 2am and had what observers described as an “animated” discussion with US climate change envoy Todd Stern at the back of the room for about 20 minutes, possibly about separate informal talks on the issue of “loss and damage” - the idea that the agreement should recognise some countries will suffer irreparable harm from climate change. The US is insistent any words about loss and damage should not suggest liability or compensation or open any possibility of legal action against US companies.
Australia was represented by officials. Foreign minister Julie Bishop was on call but spent the night hosting a dinner for Australian business and environmental leaders attending the conference.
The French presidency and the experts from the United Nations spent Thursday once again carefully paring back the very many areas of disagreement to further distill the big political issues that it is hoped will form the basis of the final trade-off deal.
A group called Parisagreement.org has analysed this task by counting the numbers of brackets - indicating disagreement. When the Paris meeting began there were 1,609 sets of brackets. In the Wednesday text there was 361.
But the key issues have not changed since the beginning of the conference 11 days ago and remain unresolved.
- Vulnerable island states and many countries who support the idea of an ambitious agreement are insisting it clearly recognise that climate science requires global warming to eventually be contained below 1.5C. Several ministers told Wednesday night’s indabas that they would not go home with a vague “expression of sympathy” on the issue. While most negotiators are still holding back their final bottom line position, some - including St Lucia’s environment minister James Fletcher are understood to have told the meeting that the inclusion of a 1.5C target was not negotiable in his view, before leaving.
- Developing countries are insisting the agreement is clear about the funding they might receive to help reduce emissions and cope with locked-in climate change, with the $100bn a year in public and private finance currently promised by 2020 as minimum for post-2020 funding.
- Developed countries including the United States and Australia and vulnerable countries are insisting the agreement make it clear that eventually all countries will need to account for and report their emissions in similar ways, with regular reviews of national commitments. Developing countries want to keep the division set up in the 1992 framework climate convention between the requirements of rich and poor nations.
Alix Mazounie with RAC France acknowledged the lack of real progress.
“This process, however good, has not yet succeeded in dealing with all the crunch issues. The Paris ambition mechanism, the loss and damage language, and scaling up commitments by 2018—these issues all need to get sorted,” she said
And Alex Hanafi of the Environmental Defence Fund said countries “have got to get transparency right first. You can’t have effective compliance without information on what countries are actually doing, no matter what is written down on paper.”
Brazil’s Marcondes tells us that negotiators working on a draft deal stayed much later than the 4.30am overnight that has already been reported.
“Many of us left here not knowing whether to say good night or good morning to colleagues: one group left here around 6am, one around 7am,” he said.
He said there were still many issues and comments raised by the overnight talks, and speculated that was why the French hosts had delayed the release of the new text to 7pm tonight (or thereabouts - we’ll see!).
On the EU’s ‘coalition of high ambition’ seeking a tough temperature limit of 1.5C, Marcondes says Brazil is not joining it, but it would like to have a deal that has a clear path to 1.5C.
Let me make it clear this is what is being called this coalition, we have to been talking to many of its members.
And we have been talking to all of them, and on this issue of ambition of the agreement. As I have pointed, we are looking for a language, wording, that can lead us to recognise that the main objective is to stay well below 2C, and to have a clear trajectory for 1.5.
Maybe we are not participating in this group of countries, but we are very mindful of concerns of small island developing countries and we recognise and we made it clear in recent G77 meeting...
Brazil’s ambassador is stressing the importance of ‘differentiation’ - a deal that recognises the different capabilities and responsibilities of rich and poorer countries - something that we explain in our guide to the deal’s sticking points.
“Differentiation is a cornerstone of the convention and certainly is an issue to be maintained and preserved.
...
“With this new agreement, that we expect to reach by the end of this week, we need to make sure that countries that only have voluntary actions to undertake, this agreement is going to be applicable to all.
“If we are talking on a new phase of the climate multilateral regime, we need to have the assurances that this issue will be there, so as to give the proper base to developing countries to be more ambitious.”
It’s time for compromises, says Brazil
“It’s time we made compromises to guarantee that Paris will be successful in achieving what we all came for here: to leave Paris with a robust, balanced and ambitious agreement,” says Antonio Marcondes, ambassador for Brazil.
He adds that the Paris talks should not try to reinvent the wheel on transparency for carbon curbs (known as MRV, see earlier), and that the deal should reflect the “idea of no backsliding and always progressing” on future carbon cuts.
Lord Stern here sees addressing air pollution as fundamental to achieving emission cuts.
“Air pollution is of fundamental importance. We are only just learning about the sclae of the toxicity from coal and diesel. We know 4,000 people a day die of air pollution in China. India is far worse. 13 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world. This is a deep, deep problem.”
On the Paris deal he said: “If we get this right this will be something more powerful than the industrial revolution. But there’s a real danger we get it wrong.”
Paris has its own air pollution problem, although it’s nowhere near as bad as Delhi’s or Beijing’s. I’ve written about that here.
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In lighter news, the singer Sean Paul is to perform “Love Song to the Earth” tonight at the climate summit.
Asked at a press conference what music could do to tackle climate change, he answered: money for every the Long Song video is played, and awareness. Oh, and he’s quite smitten with electric cars too.
Lifting spirits is something art does, we have the gift of being able to create things, human beings I’m talking about. It gives you a lift of spirit and so we created a song to lift spirits.
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It’s a good way of using our celebrity.
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I was driven here in an electric car... me being seen here, being driven in the car, asking questions... Just being here to me is great for fresh ideas to bring to my country [Jamaica].
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Among the people here in Paris for the climate summit are a delegation from Ecuador’s rainforests – here’s the Guardian’s in-depth video report on their story.
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When is it all going to finish? The Chinese delegation has said it will be Saturday “at the earliest”. The British say somewhere between Friday evening and Sunday. The French are still brazenly optimistic. But the fact that the new text is now not due to be published until around 7pm tonight suggests they have hit a brick wall.
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While nearly 200 governments try to compromise on a climate deal here in Paris, French MPs have passed a law to reduce food waste – another source of greenhouse gas emissions if it ends up in landfill, producing methane – by forcing supermarkets to give away unsold food.
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New draft due at 7pm
A new text is now expected around 7pm tonight, rather than 3pm as had been previously hoped.
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The UK-based Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) has added its voice to the calls for ships and planes to be included in the Paris deal.
Its chief executive, Adrian Ramsay, said: “Any deal coming out of Paris must include shipping and aviation. These currently account for 5% of global carbon emissions and if not included in the agreement we could see continued large growth in these emissions which will undermine efforts to reduce emissions elsewhere.”
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India and US take part in 'constructive' and 'productive' sideline meeting
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has plunged right into the negotiations to try to get the talks moving. Kerry, who was a climate champion during his years in the Senate, met on the sidelines with Prakash Javadekar, India’s environment minister.
“We’re working away today getting down to the critical stage, and we had a very constructive meeting and we feel very good about the conversation we just had. We need to work on language and that’s what most of today and tonight will be,” Kerry told reporters.
Javadekar said the two leaders had discussed “all the issues”. “We want Paris to succeed,” he said. “We want future generations to get a right and good deal from Paris and to that end we work, and I think today’s meeting was productive meeting.”
There was some expectation here in Le Bourget that a new version of the draft climate deal would be issued at 3pm, but the chair of the plenary taking place now says simply that he “hopes the text will be ready shortly”.
The plenary at Paris climate talks, as it was filling up. Now pretty much full. #cop21 pic.twitter.com/QSJbynJWFD
— Adam Vaughan (@adamvaughan_uk) December 10, 2015
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Emissions from planes might not be in the Paris text at the moment, but another UN body, ICAO, says that a deal on aviation’s carbon footprint will come next year regardless of what’s agreed this week in the Paris climate deal.
The administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency, the key body that Obama is using to push through his carbon-cutting plans, is here in Paris.
“Climate change is important in the United States and internationally and we are showing strong domestic action that will last. And we’re here to make sure there is an aggressive response at the COP this time, so we get the kind of agreement we need,” Gina McCarthy told Guardian Environment Network member, Climate Home.
She says she is confident that Obama’s “historic” regulations to cut emissions from states, the Clean Power Plan, will withstand legal challenges by Republicans and states opposed to it.
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Graham Readfearn, one of the Guardian’s environment bloggers, says that despite some upset over yesterday’s text, the situation this far into the Paris talks is much, much better than it was at the last big UN climate summit, in Copenhagen back in 2009.
We appear to have reached that predictable point in the major Paris climate talks where the idea that the efforts of more than 190 countries will all to come to nothing becomes too enticing for some.
Overnight, stories have emerged of “red lines” being drawn by certain negotiating blocs, particularly around the way richer countries can support poorer countries through cash and collaboration to adapt to climate change.
But the final 48 hours of UN climate talks tend to fall into this almost dream like state, where almost anything seems possible.
...
But old hands of the UN climate process have been explaining how in Paris, progress made so far is incomparable to the horrors of Copenhagen in 2009. One observer said that at this same stage in Denmark, the process had broken down entirely.
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There was a fair bit of fuss yesterday at emissions from ships and planes not being included in the current draft of the Paris deal, mostly from environment groups, and also from the EU.
But now even the shipowners’ association for the EU and Norway wants shipping to be included in a Paris deal.
Patrick Verhoeven, ECSA secretary general, said:
The talks in Paris are a unique opportunity to give a clear signal to the member states of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) that they need to act decisively in order to further regulate CO2 emissions from ships on a global level. It would provide support for their ability to move forward and give new impetus to ongoing discussions, which we hope will very soon reach fruition.
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One of the big and longstanding bones of contention at these talks is how to assess what countries are doing to reach their climate goals (see also Andrew Steer earlier). It is interesting to note how the language used on this has subtly softened.
MRV originally stood, when discussed before 2009’s Copenhagen summit, for monitoring, reporting and verification. This was too strong for some countries who felt that such monitoring, if carried out by external bodies, would impinge on their national sovereignty.
So it was changed to measurement, reporting and verification.
Now the term often being used here in Paris is mitigation, reporting and verification.
This weaker term could help to pacify some countries, but ultimately the sticking point remains that developed governments want developing ones to apply consistent and stringent methods to show progress to their goals, but poorer developing countries say the rules must be accommodated to their limited capacity to carry out such checks.
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With an hour to go before a new draft text is expected here at the Paris climate talks, my colleague Suzanne Goldenberg has run through the six big sticking points that remain – it’s well worth a read.
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The Philippines straddles two important blocs at the Paris meeting. After the horrific losses in typhoon Haiyan in 2007, the Philippines has been a strong advocate for the 1.5C goal, and heads the group of low-lying and vulnerable states.
But it is also a member of the G77 bloc of developing countries and China. Rising economies are ambivalent about the more ambitious target, fearing it will curb their development.
I asked Heherson Alvarez, a climate commissioner, where he saw the stumbling blocs to an agreement. “Inertia,” he said. “China wants to come in and fully participate in the problem but it is unyielding all the way. So is a country like India,” which Alvarez faulted for blocking reviews.
Alvarez had harsh words for “technologically adept” countries too, saying: “I don’t think the big countries have really positioned themselves to assume the great bulk of responsibility for decarbonisation.”
He acknowledged it would be a big stretch for developing economies to carry out the deep emissions cuts needed to get to 1.5C. “For the Philippines, it would be like 4% a year which is like pulling out teeth from a child. There is going to be a tough time doing it,” he said. “But it is not a non-achievable expectation.”
So why couldn’t China, India, and the other bigger economies step up? Alvarez asked. “If countries like ours which are not the most able in the world to do this can struggle to deliver this package there is a modus vivendi among the big boys like the US and China to talk to each other really develop a target.”
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Back in the UK, an announcement is expected on the expansion of Heathrow airport, a hugely contentious issue domestically, given prime minister, David Cameron, promised there would be no third runway at Heathrow.
MPs have also warned that the runway could not go ahead without breaching environmental limits on air pollution.
However, as Gwyn Topham reports, the decision could get kicked down the road rather than made today. If it does get the go-ahead today, though, we’ll see what reaction there is from people here in Paris who are working on a new climate deal, albeit one that currently doesn’t include emissions from aviation.
Steer says: “The negotiators are currently behind [on a deal], they are not as advanced as some analysis suggests.”
Andrew Steer, chairman of the US thinktank, the WRI, says there is no deal yet and work is still needed in the next 48 hours.
We are concerned about vulnerable countries and people, he says.
“They need to know there is adequate financing to adapt to the climate change that will take place.”
In order to be confident climate change will be addressed, we need 5 year review mechanism, he adds, as well as a longterm decarbonisation target for the second half of this century.
He also says agreement is needed on transparency, so everyone is reporting on common standards [for cutting carbon emissions], not necessarily now, but in future.
“These four things are so vital to fight for in the next 48 hours,” he says.
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We have had a lot of government-induced policy risk here in Europe, with policies suddenly turned off. “[That’s] extremely damaging to investment,” Stern says, adding that governments have to be predictable, something China has been much better at that than other countries.
“If we get this right, it’ll be much more power than industrial revolution,” he said, talking of the transition to a low carbon economy.
Lord Stern: this generation can make 2C impossible or set off a very attractive story #COP21 pic.twitter.com/bKGom1r3zz
— Adam Vaughan (@adamvaughan_uk) December 10, 2015
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Lord Stern, the economist who produced the famous eponymous review on the costs of tackling – and not tackling climate change – is here at Paris.
He says if we are to have any serious chance of keeping temperatures to 2C, as negotiators here are proposing ... we are going to have to cut emissions by a factor of 7 or 8. (He doesn’t mention 1.5C, which is one of the targets on the table here).
He says:
Delay [on cutting emissions] is extremely dangerous.
The stock of greenhouse gas is so high already in the atmosphere already ...
But delay is dangerous for another reason: we will be building probably more [energy] infrastucutre than we have already.
We will be building more in 25 years than we have already. If we do that well we’ll be set for a good future, if we do it badly, we’ll be in for 3-4C.
We have it in our hands, this generation, we who discuss policy, to either make 2C impossible or set off on a very attractive story.
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“At best” an agreement will come on Saturday not Friday, says a Chinese official, speaking at the Chinese pavilion here in Paris.
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Whatever happened to forests in the draft Paris agreement?
The Redd+ safeguards working group, made up of 42 organisations and individuals, trying to make sure that people and forests are protected, says all references to “moral, ethical and ecological imperatives” have been dropped from the text, there is no commitment to actions to “protect the needs or ecosystems, and oceans”, and new wording appears to open the door for offsets to be be used against fossil fuels.
That seems to mean rich countries will be able to benefit from carbon trading, but there wont be much protection for anyone who lives in them.
Since the draft text was published yesterday, the US has been talking with China and India, AP reports.
US Secretary of State John Kerry reached out to two major developing nations Brazil and India and is expected to meet other negotiators as the Obama administration works for a deal that reflects its concerns about global warming but doesn’t require congressional approval.
AP also has China predicting a deal will be reached on Saturday, although the French hosts here still maintain a deal will come on Friday.
Chinese negotiator Gao Feng was one of many suggesting the talks won’t finish on time. “Friday or maybe Saturday, I think we will get it.”
There is a palpable feeling in the halls this is crunch time, and there will be an agreement.
Alix Mazounie, of Climate Action Network France, offers her analysis: “Some countries are trying to stall progress but they are not trying to stop a deal. It is a case now of a trade-off between a universal agreement and an ambitious one.”
The loss and damage talks went on till 5am (more on what loss and damage is here), and the issue is far from unresolved. The US is set absolutely against the idea that they should be held “liable” for irreversible damage caused by climate change. But for many small countries this is a red line.
“They want total exclusion of liability. But it’s a red line too for developing countries. There cannot be a deal without it,” says Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid’s senior climate adviser.
He added: “Three things are not tradable now; loss and damage, finance and ambition. Loss and damage will leave the most vulnerable behind; finance would leave the poorest behind, and ambition would leave the world behind.”
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How long will a final deal take?
One of the often overlooked issues here is that as any agreement will be a legal instrument it must go through a careful process of vetting by lawyers and carefully worded translations by linguistic experts. This lengthens the process.
The French are currently trying to speed up this process by having parts of the text that are “clean” submitted to the lawyers now so they have a headstart. However, as the most controversial areas are still undecided only a few parts of the text may be so treated.
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The UK thinks the current text needs to be more ambitious.
A spokesman told Guardian Environment Network partner, BusinessGreen:
We need to secure a deal that keeps ambition rising in the future, as the costs of action are driven down by greater innovation, investment and competition. We are working closely with all our partners in the negotiations, especially the poorest and most vulnerable countries, to secure a deal that is ambitious, fair and transparent.
"UK has 'lost world climate leadership role' by axing domestic green policies"
That’s the headline on a story by Fiona Harvey and myself today, on how top scientists, former ministers and diplomats, and business figures view the UK’s international climate reputation after a string of cuts to renewable energy subsidies, energy efficiency programmes and a £1bn carbon capture project.
Here’s former European commission chief scientific adviser, Anne Glover:
The UK does not have a leadership role, nor is it regarded to have a leadership role in Brussels. If we don’t lead, who does? To me it looks like we’re moving backwards.
And Ed Davey, who was energy minister until May:
I doubt George Osborne will end up proud to tell his children and grandchildren of this monumental mistake – he’s caving into the pressure of the likes of fossil fuel interests and [prominent climate sceptic] Lord Lawson, just as the rest of the world agreed to do the right thing.
The UK - as an EU member state - is part of the “coalition of high ambition” here at the Paris summit.
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The Paris Agreement, a site sponsored by the NGO Tropical Forest Group that’s been set up to track the text of the deal being discussed here in the French capital, has a useful graphic on how the current draft compares to the last:
Decision text: 86 brackets in #mitigation down 55% from Dec5 74% from Nov10 #momentum #COP21 https://t.co/aJvVytZBEC pic.twitter.com/TWy8gAttWt
— Paris Agreement News (@ParisAgreement) December 9, 2015
Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace’s executive director, says governments have a choice of standing with the people of the world or fossil fuel interests.
He calls the INDCs (climate pledges) “totally inadequate”, and says they should be reviewed by 2018 to increase their ambition.
“We are united in saying that our movement is unstoppable. We have momentum with us. Leaders are suffering from cognitive dissonance, not all of them. They are not going to be able to stop this transition.
“Stop playing political poker with the future of our children and their children in the last 48 hours of the negotiations.”
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Samantha Smith, leader of the climate initiative at WWF, touches on the options in the text over how tough the target on future warming should be – and whether that target is backed up by action.
“There’s a debate as to whether upper limit for global warming should be 1.5C or 2C. This is a critical difference.
“But a temperature target is not enough because we do not see the emissions reductions, the finance on the table from developed countries to ... together meet this target.
“Developed countries, wealthy countries who have the capacity, must do their fair share.
“The agreement on table leaves open possibility of doing more. It is essential the final text keeps that open.”
She says developed countries pre-2020 can do much more. These INDCs (climate pledges) they too can be improved by quite a lot, she says. She says they are calling on parties to make sure there is a review of the pledges before 2020. Most of those pledges list cuts or curbs on emissions by 2025 or 2030.
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Adriano Campolina, executive director of ActionAid, says climate justice and finance are the key issues as we enter the final 48 hours towards a deal.
“This agreement cannot be, and we will not accept it, on the shoulders of the poorest and most vulnerable. When it comes to finance, rich countries have failed so far,” he said.
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Helen Szoke, executive director at Oxfam says today is a key moment for the Paris talks.
“This is a crunch time for the globe, this is a crunch time for us all ... This Paris process must deliver. Must have greater ambition.
“The main message of today is we want the leaders to catch up with the rest of the world.”
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Delegates work overnight for climate deal
Good morning from the north-eastern suburbs of Paris, where negotiators from governments around the world have been working into the early hours to iron out their differences on a climate deal.
After nearly two weeks of UN talks here in Paris, a draft text of the agreement that’s meant to save us from dangerous global warming was published on Wednesday. Although much shorter than a previous version and with less in brackets – indicating disagreement – the reaction was mixed.
Suzanne Goldenberg and our team here in Paris rounded up some of delegates first thoughts on the draft late last night:
Miguel Arias Cañete, the EU energy commissioner, acknowledged the gaps. “The text is not bold enough as it stands,” he said. “We will work to improve it. We invite other countries to join us.”
The European Union said the removal from the text of any reference to emissions from shipping and aviation betrayed “unacceptable levels of low ambition”. Australia complained about a “lack of balance” and Russia advised the only way forward was to re-negotiate the document line by line.
Trinidad and Tobago’s delegate warned the Paris agreement would be “seriously flawed” if it did not stick to an ambitious 1.5C target to limiting warming. Barbados offered even stronger language, warning: “We will not sign off any agreement that represents a certain extinction of our people.”
South Africa said the text was a significant departure and dilution from principles that have guided the talks in the past.
Today, French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, has promised us a new version of the text this afternoon. Some negotiators were up as late as 4.30am, so we’ll soon see what their post-midnight deliberations have yielded.
We’ll have a guide later this morning to the main sticking points remaining. In the meantime, I’ll be covering all the news and briefings here in Paris, so email me, tweet me or post in the thread below.
And if you’re wondering what the Paris climate talks are all about, please read our at-a-glance guide.
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