PARIS: France signalled a “breakthrough” Tuesday at 46-nation talks in Paris tasked with paving the way for a highly-anticipated climate rescue pact to be inked in December.
Ministers and top officials at an informal gathering reached consensus on several issues that have stymied the official negotiations for years, France’s top climate negotiator Laurence Tubiana told journalists.
Crucially, they concurred there should be a regular, five-yearly review, once the agreement kicks in, of the collective effort to curb planet-warming greenhouse gases.
“This is a breakthrough,” said Tubiana. “That was not obvious to get.”
The political signal emerging from the Paris talks will now filter down and hopefully ease the job of rank-and-file negotiators for the 195 countries crafting a historic global agreement.The Paris talks were not part of the official negotiations, and fewer than a quarter of countries were directly represented.
But all the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters, apart from Russia, were represented, as were all recognised negotiating blocs.
Foreign Minister Tony de Brum from the Marshall Islands, one of the small island states at highest risk of climate change-induced sea level rise, welcomed the progress.
“The French initiative to engage ministers early and often is a clever one. It’s a move that will help to ensure success in Paris,” he told AFP.
“The process needs a political nudge. Having ministers talking to each other, sitting around eye-to-eye, that helps to move things along.”
The pact to be finalised at a November 30-December 11 UN conference in the French capital will have as its goal to limit average global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.
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