Paris-Le Bourget, 7 December 2015 (Agence Europe) - The first strategy came off at COP 21. On the basis of a compromise text, presented in the nick of time on the evening of Saturday 5 December, the international climate negotiations entered their decisive political phase on Monday 7 December, when the environment and energy ministers of the 196 parties to the negotiations, including the European Union and its 28 member states, joined the process.
The speeches at the start of this second week of negotiations expressed the political will to conclude, during which they were invited by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to secure a universal, solid and fair agreement in a spirit of compromise.
“National interests will be better served if we work for the common good”, Ban warned, calling for a “global vision” and “global solidarity”, echoing the words of French President François Hollande on Saturday, when he called on the delegations to “go beyond individual interests”.
Bolstered by the progress made thus far, Ban expressed his confidence in the French Presidency of COP 21 and in the 14 facilitators appointed by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius to assist him over the course of this week and to promote compromises on the trickiest subjects. The 'Paris committee', a body created to take stock of the progress on a daily basis and give the Parties an overview of the discussions underway, was to meet on Monday evening.
“I call on the negotiators to understand that perfect is the enemy of the good enough. There will be a review of the commitments every five years, there will be a declaration, supervision and verification mechanism. It will always be possible to tighten up the text”, he said, urging the negotiators to speed up the pace of their work.
A race against time is underway given the extremely tight timetable that Fabius, the president of COP 21, has set the ministers for this week, which marks “a dawning hope”. The text is shorter and contains fewer options, but still a great many brackets. The level of ambition, the differentiation and the financing are some of the most controversial issues. However, there are four days of negotiations left. “We don't have many days to conclude the agreement the world is waiting for? We need a text on Thursday so that we can adopt it on Friday”, Fabius warned, speaking of a “positive frame of mind towards the work and concentration”.
The work started on Sunday by four working groups - each chaired by two facilitator ministers and focusing on differentiation (Singapore-Brazil), ambition (Norway-Saint Lucia), implementation resources (finance, technology, capacity/Gabon-Germany) and pre-2020 action not including finances (Gambia-United Kingdom), continued on Monday, as the informal consultations on adaptation got underway.
Among the “good news for financing”, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework on Climate Change Christiana Figueres flagged up the Commission's announcement that it would bring its funding up to 2 billion a year until 2020. She also referred to the Green Climate Fund, with its starting envelope of 10.1 billion and which can count on contributions from cities (the city of Paris has announced $1 million), but also on Vietnam, a developing country which has pledged $1 million. Other small funds have also seen their coffers swell, such as the fund for the least-developed countries ($48 million).
Referring to a “critical week”, Miguel Arias Canete, European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy and negotiator-in-chief of the EU, reiterated the EU's commitment to fight for a “universal, ambitious, sustainable, dynamic, robust and sufficiently credible agreement”. He stressed three vital elements for the EU, “to stay on a trajectory of less than 2°”: - a clear long-term objective (not just 2100, but 2050 as well), in line with science, to send out the message to the world, to industry and to investors that we are ready; - a five-year review mechanism, as the 186 parties which have submitted their national contributions represent 96.5% of global emissions and this is not enough, meaning that more must be done; - clear transparency, verification and responsibility rules. On these points, “there is a great degree of consensus, which is encouraging”, he told the press. He went on to stress that the countries which fear for their growth are wrong because “ambitious action stimulate growth”, as shown by the fact that the EU cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 23% between 1990 and 2014, and achieved growth of 14.6% over the same period.
According to him, climate financing would be a “critical element” because the most vulnerable developing countries would need support to implement their contributions to the global agreement. He provided assurances that “the European Union is perfectly prepared to play its role” but pointed out, however, that developing countries contributed 35% of admissions, the EU 9% and called on the countries emitting the remaining 56% to take “urgent action”. He also pointed out that “the EU is the biggest fund donor in the world when it comes to climate financing and public development aid and we are committed to increasing our climate financing”. The EU and its member states provide half of the $120 billion spent every year in the area of climate financing and that the member states provided more than €14.5 billion in 2014 to developing countries to tackle climate change, 80% of the least developed countries' spending and resources from the Special Climate Change Fund, in addition to 90% from the Adaptation Fund. Spending on adaptation has increased from €334 million to €559 million over a two-year period. In total, €800 million in aid has been paid every year on climate financing, he pointed out. Dismissing the criticism from NGOs regarding the EU's attitude, the Commissioner explained “all countries that can must help the least advanced countries” and that the EU is expecting the emerging countries, which were previously classed as developing countries, but which now have a financing capacity that they did not have in 1992 “to put their hands in their pockets”.
The Commissioner was aware that the US did not want to link their INDC to a legally binding commitment and pointed out that the EU was prepared to discuss “alternatives” that established trust with regard to what everyone would do according to the terms of their commitments, “we want the US on board. We do not want Kyoto to be repeated. It must be a universal agreement”.
Speaking on behalf of the Presidency of the Council of the EU, Carole Dieschbourg, the Luxembourg environment minister, who, together with the Commissioner for the EU, is carrying out the negotiations, welcomed “some of the progress achieved over the first week”. She said that “despite the outline of the text still being too complex”, as well as the excess of options and the fact that “all the major questions are still pending” she was “confident that an agreement is within our grasp”. Dieschbourg was, however, concerned by the fact that scientific revision of the average global warming target was between 1.5°C and 2°C but was being blocked by a small number of parties and asserted that the EU was being very active in attempts to guarantee “an ambitious, solid agreement, that protects the most vulnerable” and that it is working “in close collaboration” with vulnerable countries to find solutions. She also welcomed “as a good sign” the fact that the rules for the second period of Kyoto protocol commitment rules had been approved the day before.
On 7 December, the access day for developing countries to sustainable energy, €10 billion was promised to Africa by 2020 for 10 supplementary gigawatts. Neven Mimica, the commissioner for international cooperation and development, signed joint declarations on energy with Nigeria, Benin, Senegal, Kenya, Madagascar and Cameroon.
The European Parliament delegation consisted of 15 MEPs and arrived on Monday afternoon, with the intention of extending the inclusion of emissions from international civilian aviation and maritime transport to the future agreement (an option in the draft text, which leaves a certain room for optimism). They also wanted to prioritise the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) and the EU's willingness to share its experience (similar markets are being set up in California, South Korea and some Chinese cities). Parliament said that the revenues from the trading scheme could be used as a source of financing to help the Green Climate Fund. Giovanni La Via (EPP, Italy) headed the delegation and emphasised that “financing could help make or break an agreement”. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)