With four days to go until the Paris climate talks are supposed to end, ministers and negotiators are working around the clock to sort out long-standing differences. Carbon Pulse continues to publish updates from the French capital as they happen.
2009 CET – CLIMATE NEUTRAL AIRPORTS: The UNFCCC and the Airports Council International (ACI) announced an agreement to cut emissions at airports and work towards achieving carbon neutrality. Reductions will be made through use of energy-efficient lighting, cooling and heating systems, solar energy, climate-friendly ground transportation and a wide range of other measures. ACI will support the UNFCCC’s Climate Neutral Now initiative, while the UNFCCC secretariat will support an airport carbon accreditation programme, through which more and more airports will measure, report and reduce their emissions.
1953 CET – EU-BRAZIL COMPROMISE SPARKS HOPE ON DEAL ON MARKETS: The EU and Brazil on Tuesday evening circulated a draft text agreement that raised hopes that the Paris deal could include a text on emissions markets. The proposal included wording to ensure a strict accounting regime to avoid double-counting. Read the full story here.
1633 CET – GERMAN ADAPTATION CASH: Germany announced that it would increase its funding for the Adaptation Fund for developing countries by €50 million to a total €140 million.
1608 CET – EU & ACP STATES UNITE: The EU and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states have agreed to unite in pushing for an ambitious deal in Paris, which “must be legally binding, inclusive, fair, ambitious, durable and dynamic”. The group, which comprises a total 107 countries, called for other deal requisites to include a clear and operational long-term temperature goal in line with science, a five-year review mechanism, and a system to track the transparency and accountability of countries in meeting their national commitments. However, the issues of finance and differentiation (CBDR), identified as the main two stumbling blocks standing in the way of a deal, were not mentioned by the parties.
The announcement is reminiscent of the ‘Durban Alliance’, which was formed in the closing days of COP-17 by the EU and the AOSIS and LDC groups. That informal partnership was partly credited for getting other parties including the US and India to agree to an eventual a deal “with legal force” early on the Sunday morning in Durban. However, the alliance showed cracks the following year in Doha after AOSIS and the LDCs said the EU’s emissions reduction and financial pledges were far from what was needed.
1515 CET – BASIC NATIONS STRESS FAMILIAR CONFLICT LINES: Facing international media on Tuesday afternoon, the BASIC nations – Brazil, South Africa, India and China – pointed to familiar issues where they feel negotiations are going slow. Their chief negotiators said developed countries had put far too little climate cash on the table and shown insufficient will to step up pre-2020 ambition, while expressing concern that the CBDR principle risks being diluted.
All four dismissed an OECD study released earlier this year estimating $62 billion in climate finance had been provided in 2014, saying there was a lot of double-counting involved and that clearer rules are needed on how to count contributions.
Some signs of internal disagreement showed as well, as India’s Prakash Javadekar said India would only review its INDC every 10 years, while Brazil’s Izabella Teixeira supported a 5-year review period. The countries also disagreed on whether the Paris Agreement should aim for a 1.5C or 2C target, though Teixeira promised they would arrive at a common position during the COP.
1449 CET – ONTARIO EV CHARGING STATIONS: Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has announced a C$20 million grant initiative to build electric vehicle charging stations across the province as part of its new C$325 green investment programme, which is to help Ontario hit its 2050 target to cut GHGs by 80% below 1990 levels by 2050. Carbon allowance auction revenues from the province’s cap-and-trade scheme, which is to launch in 2017, will boost these funds in the future, Ontario’s Environment Minister Glen Murray added.
1430 CET – GREEN GROUPS PUBLISH CLIMATE RANKINGS: Environmental group Germanwatch published its annual Climate Change Performance Index, which ranks national climate action up to 2014. It left the first three positions blank to reflect overall inadequacy, but then placed Denmark, UK and Sweden. The two biggest emitters, China and the US, were 34 and 47 respectively, with Australia, Japan, Korea and Canada in the bottom six of the 58 major emitters surveyed.
1241 CET – EU LAWMAKERS CALL FOR STRONG PARIS DEAL ON CARBON MARKETS, BUNKERS: A delegation of members of the EU Parliament has arrived in Paris, urging the deal to include international aviation and shipping and for the EU to use carbon market revenues to fund climate finance initiatives to poorer nations. The MEPs have no formal negotiating role at the nation-level talks but can add presssure on their delegations.
1234 CET – PHILIPPINES TO JOIN JAPAN’S BILATERAL CARBON OFFSET MARKET: This puts the country on track to become the 17th nation to join the market, under which Japan aims to fund carbon-cutting projects in return for offsets it can use towards meeting its 2030 emission target. The two nations signed the MoU at the sidelines of the Paris talks, where Japan will later hold an event showcasing many of the initial JCM partnerships. See full story.
1203 CET – CHINA’S NATIONAL ETS TO GO BIG FROM THE START: China will bring nearly 10,000 companies emitting around 4 billion tonnes of CO2 per year into its national emissions trading scheme from the start in 2017, a government official said Tuesday, marking a step change from previous plans that would have grown the market to that size only by 2020. Jiang Zhaoli, deputy director of the climate change department at the NDRC, told a side event at the UN climate talks in Paris that China wanted to cover as many emissions sources as possible to make the scheme efficient. See full story.
0912 CET – BUSINESS TO DOCUMENT PROGRESS: There are still more sideline announcements than reports of actual negotiation progress at the COP21 venue. On Tuesday morning, hundreds of businesses from around the world will announce their progress in cutting emissions (12% since 2013) and their commitment to continue addressing climate change issues, in the Caring for Climate Business forum. The announcement event will include big-name speakers such as Ban Ki-moon, John Kerry, Laurent Fabius and Christiana Figueres.
By Carbon Pulse – news@carbon-pulse.com
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