After a 32-hour delay, the annual UN climate talks finally came to a close in Lima, Peru, when Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal struck the gavel in the early hours of December 14, 2014. The 20th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) saw two-week-long negotiations involving interlocutors from more than 190 countries and organizations. Its conclusion marks a step forward to a new agreement addressing climate change, tentatively scheduled to be passed at the end of 2015 in Paris and go into effect in 2020.
The agreement reached by climate negotiators in Lima put forward a wide range of options for the upcoming pact in Paris, which will aim to prevent the global average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Each participating nation is directed to submit its own plans for curbing global warming in the first half this year.
"Developing countries have shown their utmost sincerity and left no stones unturned in achieving positive and balanced results at the conference. However, limited progress has been made by developed countries in realizing the emissions targets laid out in the Kyoto Protocol (the agreement in 1997 that major industrial nations will reduce their greenhouse gas emissions between 2008 and 2012) Amendment," said Xie Zhenhua, head of the Chinese delegation and Vice Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), noting that the arduous Paris negotiations should be carried out in a determined and ambitious yet flexible way.
"The result is not perfect, but in the interests of all parties, making sure that all the people will do more to cope with climate change," said Brazil's chief negotiator José Antonio Marcondes de Carvalho, who expected a more ambitious result.
EU Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said the Lima draft has laid a solid foundation for reaching an agreement in Paris by determining the elements that should be included in it.
Divisions and contradictions
"Postponement is almost a rule of climate change negotiations," Xie said before the Lima conference convened. Longstanding divisions between developed and developing countries again kept them from reaching an agreement by the set time.
The Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (the recognition that developed and developing nations have different contributions to environmental problems and differ in their economic and technical capacity to tackle these problems) is the "red line" for many developing countries. However, it was not reflected in the preliminary Lima draft and so, was not approved by all parties. With the Peru minister coordinating and mediating in the interests of all the countries, negotiators decided to include the principle in the agreement by quoting the related statement in a China-U.S. joint announcement on climate change on November 12, 2014. China and the United States "are committed to reaching an ambitious 2015 agreement that reflects the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities and respective capabilities, in light of different national circumstances," according to the joint document. Moreover, other elements of major concern were brought back to the table, such as the loss and damage from climate change mechanism advocated by the Alliance of Small Island States (It is the concept of having an international mechanism to insure vulnerable communities against loss and damage when mitigation and adaptation efforts fail).
"The conference achieved an acceptable but not satisfying result," Xie said, admitting that the agreement, though in line with China's expectations, left unresolved issues to the Paris conference.
One point of contention is that rich countries are insisting pledges should focus on efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions, and trying to force emerging economies such as China and India into the emissions reduction system.
As developed countries have moved many industries to the developing world by virtue of their advantageous position vis-a-vis the global economy, politics and power, carbon emissions have also been transferred to emerging economies. "Given that, the developed world is historically accountable for global warming," said Zou Ji, Deputy Director of China's National Center for Climate Change Strategy and International Cooperation.
But developed countries have resisted calls for more robust financial support. According to the UNFCCC, developed countries should fulfill the obligation of providing sufficient funding to developing countries to cope with climate change. The negotiations, including those for technology transfer, have made little progress over the past two decades.
In December 2013, the UN launched the Green Climate Fund, which aims at helping developing countries tackle climate change. Pledges to the program amounted to a mere $10.2 billion at the Lima conference, far less than the 2020 target of $100 billion. Moreover, there is no clear roadmap for the ambitious goal.
"Developed countries should honor their commitments and shoulder their responsibilities under the UNFCCC to offer more support to developing countries in terms of mitigation, finance, technology, and capability building," Xie said.
China's efforts
According to the China-U.S. joint announcement on climate change, the United States has set a target of reducing its emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level in 2025. China has pledged to achieve a peak of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030 and increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20 percent by 2030.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the China-U.S. joint announcement will exert significant influence on negotiations and actions concerning climate change and create a useful model for solving problems regarding the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities.
UNFCCC Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres also said China and the United States' commitments are a significant political impetus to the Lima conference. The China-U.S. announcement alone cannot solve the climate change problem, but without it, solving the problem will be completely impossible.
According to a report, China's Policies and Actions on Climate Change (2014), released on November 25, as of 2013, China's carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP was reduced by 28.56 percent from 2005. In the first three quarters of 2014, China's energy consumption intensity and carbon intensity further dropped by 4.6 percent and 5 percent year on year, respectively. In 2013, 6.1 million hectares of forest and 2.52 billion trees were planted, surpassing the target for the year.
According to World Bank estimates, from 1990 to 2010, China's energy-conserving efforts accounted for 58 percent of the world's total energy efficiency. Moreover, the country's installed capacity of renewable energy accounted for 24 percent of the world's total, and its newly installed renewable energy capacity made up 37 percent of the global total in 2013, according to the NDRC.
From 2011 to 2013, China provided an annual financial support of $10 million for developing countries to enhance their capacity to deal with climate change. At the UN Climate Summit held in September 2014, Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, special envoy of Chinese President Xi Jinping, announced that China would double its assistance and establish the South-South Cooperation Fund in 2015.
Since 2011, China has invested 270 million yuan ($43.99 million) in assisting developing countries' efforts to address climate change and trained nearly 2,000 climate change officials and professionals from developing countries, according to the NDRC.
Xie noted that China will not jockey with its "poor brothers" for the financial assistance provided by the Green Climate Fund. Instead, it will help them to receive more money from the fund through South-South cooperation. CA
Results of the Lima conference
» Although the language of the final version of the Lima agreement is much weaker than what many nations expected, the elements of the 2015 Paris agreement have been detailed, laying a foundation for the draft of agreement.
» A consensus was reached to push forward the talks on Durban Platform for Enhanced Action after 2020. The Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities will be further defined and reinforced in the 2015 Paris agreement.
» The content of the climate pledges for the Paris agreement was laid out, providing a reference for the countries to put forward their post-2020 action targets before the Paris conference.
» Arrangements were made to facilitate the implementation of the Bali Roadmap (the two-year process to finalize an agreement made in Copenhagen in 2009) before 2020.
» Developed countries pledged more than $10 billion for the Green Climate Fund.
BASIC proposals
The "BASIC countries," - Brazil, South Africa, India and China - laid out their positions on the 2015 Paris agreement. They said:
» The agreement should stick to the Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities, the Equality Principle and the Respective Capabilities Principle;
» The scope of intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) – the agreement by the countries to publicly outline what actions they intend to take before the Paris summit - should encompass mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capability building;
» The pre-assessment of INDCs in 2015 will distract attention from the negotiations and affect the conclusion of the Paris agreement;
» Efforts should be made to realize the negotiation results of the Bali Roadmap, enable the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, and make plain the timetable and roadmap for raising $100 billion as of 2020; and
» The Paris agreement should reflect the issues of concerns of all parties in a balanced and comprehensive way, and all the countries should strive to work out solutions through multilateral negotiations.
