UN Climate agreement: some positive points have been reached

UN Climate agreement: some positive points have been reached

"Les Échos", Dec. 14th 

Courtesy UN

JOEL COSSARDEAUX /DIVISION DEPUTY HEAD – ON DEC. 14th

Facing the major part of the loss and damages due to global warming, Southern countries obtained aid from developed nations to help their adaptation to climatic conditions.

National contributions

Every country is invited to send to the UN its own intended nationally greenhouse gases reduction cuts program. The agreement called to act “far before” Paris conference, which shall take place in December 2015, and “during the first quarter of 2015, for those who can do it”. The agreement “allows” the States to include some information in this program (such as a reference year, a commitment period, an action plan and affected sectors and so on), but these information are not mandatory. The non-mandatory feature was a prerequisite in order to save this framework, which is the core of the incoming Paris agreement. Moreover, the agreement does not consider any evaluation framework, contrary to the previous ones. China has fiercely opposed to such an evaluation.

Adaptation

Adaptation is a point on which Southern countries have won. The Lima agreement urges developed countries to make high donations not only to finance the measures taken by poor countries to cope with the consequences of global warming, but also dedicated to the adaptation frameworks necessary to face continuously this climate change. These works are very expensive. A study released by the UN program for development (PNUD) expects that the necessary investments will amount to USD 70 up to 100 billion per year up to 2050.

Green Fund

The implementation of a Green Fund is one of the most dramatic results of the Lima conference: the Climate Green Fund has overtaken USD 10 billion. This fund is dedicated to finance the actions taken by developing countries to face climatic change. What stands out is that several developing countries, such as Mongolia, Peru or Bolivia, are among the 27 donating countries. However, the Southern countries have carried on claiming some precisions about the financing which shall permit to reach the USD 100 billion by 2020, promised in Copenhague, during the climate conference of 2009, without any success. The subject has remained totally blurred.

Loss and damage

The Lima agreement mentions the idea of “loss and damage” openly caused by global warming in some regions. Moreover, the agreement contains an indemnification framework draft announced in the Varsaw climate conference last year. This mention has been made on the request of small insular States and aims at reminding to the international opinion a framework which has not yet started to be implemented.

Links

http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2014/12/briefing-lima-call-for-climate-action-lays-out-policy-options-for-new-global-deal/
http://blog.cifor.org/lima/
http://www.robertstavinsblog.org/2014/12/14/assessing-the-outcome-of-the-lima-climate-talks/