Negotiations update : Dec 10th
As of this Thursday morning, the negotiations in Paris seem to be moving at a faster pace. On Wednesday, December 9th, a new draft text was released by the French presidency. It is only 29 pages long and 75% of the brackets have disappeared. However, as the Earth Negotiations Bulletin of December 9 reports, “some brackets are more stubborn than others.”
According to the negotiators’ press briefing on Thursday, December 10, three levels of issues remain. First come the political issues, such as finance, differentiation and ambition. Some countries have expressed their will to move from a 2°C warming target to 1.5°. Observers have pointed out that this objective might be difficult to achieve with the current nationally determined contributions. This lead EU delegation head Elina Bardram to underline the importance of transparency and accountability in the process of implementing national contributions. The EU is pushing for increasing ambitions over time, intermediate milestones, and control mechanisms. These proposals have not gathered unanimity. However, the EU has built a coalition of interests that also include developing countries (Brazil is an example). Differentiation and finance are still major points of friction, since actual national contributions to the global response to climate change will be dependent upon it. The Arab group seems particularly worried of a phrasing that states that countries “in position to do so” will contribute in the future to the global effort.
The second level of issues that still need to be addressed, according to the head of the South-African delegation Alf Wills’s analysis, are made of adaptation and market mechanisms to achieve the announced goal. Finally, the form that the agreement will finally take is not decided yet and constitutes the third layer of issues, the technical ones. It is to be noted that the resolution of the political issues, possibly in the next few hours with the release of a new text expected to occur later today (Dec 10), will presumably unlock negotiating space for the two other layers.
