Climate Meet Seeks New Kyoto Pact

This year’s annual UN climate talks kicked off in Lima, Peru on Monday with exhortations from the meeting’s leaders for delegates to move forward on efforts to secure a draft version of a global emissions-cutting deal for the post-2020 period.

Negotiators from over 190 nations have gathered for the Twentieth Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), being held from 1-12 December.

Governments have set themselves until next year’s meet in Paris, France to hammer out a new globally binding climate pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires at the end of the decade, with the Lima COP seen as a significant stepping stone toward this goal.

A non-paper on elements of parties’ views and proposals on elements for a draft negotiating text was released in October by the co-chairs of a working group geared towards sealing the new climate agreement.

Parties are also considering a revised draft text outlining the type of information that should be included in national contributions to the multilateral deal and how to ramp up climate mitigation under the current regime.

The opening COP session also saw Dr. Rachendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warn that the window for efficiently acting on climate-warming emissions would soon close.

The IPCC has issued three reports in the last 18 months warning of the far-ranging consequences of climate change and calling for near zero emissions by the end of the century.

Climate finance

Climate finance was a key buzz word in the early days of the meet this week. Some parties have called for more focus on resources for adaptation to negative climate impacts, with suggestions floated to have an adaptation finance goal in the 2015 deal, among others.

While the capitalisation of the Green Climate Fund at the end of last month with nearly US$10 billion lifted spirits heading into Lima, both Brazil and China on the eve of the meet said the amount was insufficient, according to media reports.