LIMA: UN member countries agreed on Sunday on a format for national pledges on curbing Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions to be introduced next year.
The pledges:
* Should be submitted by the first quarter of 2015 by "those parties ready to do so", and as soon as possible thereafter by the rest.
* Will be self-determined.
* Must improve on a nation's current carbon-cutting undertakings.
* May include information on the base year used as a reference for emissions cuts, time frame for implementation, and the methodology for calculating the numbers.
* Will be published on the website of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
* Will be assessed by the UNFCCC secretariat, which will prepare a report by November 1, 2015, on their aggregate effect on the UN goal to curb global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.
They need not:
* Include information on rich countries' planned financial assistance for developing nations, as requested by many, though the text "urges" such support.
* Detail assistance for developing nations' climate adaptation plans. Parties are merely invited to "consider including an adaptation component".
* Despite demands by nations at the highest risk from global warming, the text does not call for a process to ramp up pledges if their aggregate effect is found lacking.
* Least developed countries and small island developing states are exempt from pledging, but may communicate information on low-emissions strategies if they wish.
* Negotiators also undertook to complete before May 2015 a working draft for a new global climate pact that must be inked in Paris in December.
