WITH just two more days remaining, the climate talks in Lima were nowhere close to resolving the numerous differences in positions of different countries, with negotiations dragging on without making any breakthrough.
As countries stuck to their standard positions, the European Union publicly expressed its frustration at the slow progress of talks over the last two days.
“The progress is much slower than what we want to see or what we need. The (negotiating) text has significantly increased in length with no paragraphs yet agreed. We need a simple text for political decisions to be taken,” said EU commissioner Miguel Arias Canete. “It is high time that we pick up pace now. I hope co-chairs (of the negotiating body) will produce a clean text soon.”
US lead negotiator Todd Stern agreed that the talks were progressing very slowly but said he was not “overly worried” as yet. “This is not shocking at these talks and we are not in any kind of danger zone with respect to time. This kind of thing can often happen in the second week and I am not alarmed by this. Obviously the players who are managing the process will have some ideas about how to take the discussions forward. I would not describe myself as overly worried but I would absolutely concur with the notion that things have dragged on pretty slowly. It will be important to get things moving,” he said.
Countries have been negotiating a text that would finalise how the Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions (INDCs) would look like. Each country has to submit its INDC next year listing the ‘contribution’ it will make in the fight against climate change. The INDCs will form the backbone of the global climate agreement that is expected to be finalized at the next climate talks in Paris next year. An Indian negotiator said nearly every contentious point had remained as it is with countries putting in their own suggestions to every proposal on the table. As a result the length of the negotiating text had increased by several pages.
Liz Gallagher of E3G, a climate action group, said this wasn’t “unusual” but did not “bode well” for a simple agreed outcome. “It seems countries are trying to avoid their responsibilities to act. What they are trying to do is include exceptions everywhere in the text,” she said, hoping that the COP presidency (host country Peru) had a plan to deal with this in the remaining two days.
Over the next two days, countries have to decide on what all should be counted as “contributions” in the INDCs. EU, US and other rich countries want only emission-reducing activities to be listed in the INDCs while developing countries including India have been pressing for recognition of adaptation measures also as “contributions”.
