Climate negotiators release new draft for deliberation

A fresh draft negotiating text incorporating major progress and differences was today unveiled after intense negotiations on the eve of the stated end of crucial climate change conference.
The fresh draft will now be deliberated by the ministers to reach a UN accord to curb green house gas emissions.
"On the eve of the stated end of our conference, we can move to a decisive step to reach a final agreement. I am submitting a new draft to you (nations)," said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius.
The fresh draft negotiating text contains 27 pages two less than the previous one which was released yesterday after two days of ministerial consultations.

"The document is slightly shorter. There are some brackets. Some complex issues still remain brackets like finance, differentiation and ambition which needs to be discussed in the coming hours," Fabius said.
The draft was circulated to nations at one of the session which was convened here late in the night.

Nations have been given two and a half hours to study the draft after which they will again meet to discuss various key contentious issues which still remain.
Terming yesterday's meeting as an "important" one, Fabius said that each party was able to express its opinion about the draft and the interventions were useful to clarify the detail of the text.

"It was a long and intensive night of work. This allowed us to make progress," Fabius said.
After the parties go through the text, the meeting will be convened which will seek "landing zones" for the final agreement.
"I would like you to look at the document in a new perspective with final agreement in mind. I will chair a new meeting which I will call the solutions meeting. But this time it will search only compromises. There will be no general statements but only compromise solutions. Now its time to seek landing zones," Fabius said.
He said that the fresh text moved on to a range of choices.

"We want an agreement. We are extremely close to finishing line. Is time to come to an agreement," Fabius said.
After this meeting, which would be a short meeting, you will have to have enough time to study the draft. I propose two and a half hours to study. Then subsequently we will continue our consultation I will chair a new solutions meeting, but this time it will search only for compromise, he said.
Fabius said that on the basis of the progress made he
would be able to present the proposal for a final text.
Meanwhile, commenting on new draft text, Martin Kaiser of Greenpeace said what was on the table wasn't good enough.

"It's a very big problem that the emissions targets on the table will not keep us below 1.5 degrees of warming and this draft deal does absolutely nothing to change that. Right now we're witnessing a display of international impotence," Kaiser said.
"This text should say that countries have to come back soon with better numbers but instead it kicks that can down the road, saying we'll sort it in ten or fifteen years. That's too late, they're closing the door on our best chance to dodge dangerous warming," he said.
Still others maintained that the current draft could have been stronger, but the door is still open to increase ambition over time.

"The clock is ticking and ministers need to resolve the final outstanding issues. Critically, we could be closer to an agreement on a review of country pledges before 2020, but the current 2019 timeframe leaves very little time for countries to enhance those pledges," said Tasneem Essop, WWF's head of delegation to the UN climate talks in Paris.
"They need to do it earlier. There is still a lot of work ahead. There is a huge problem with the options for loss and damage in the current text. The current options provide no hope for people who will suffer the impacts of climate change the hardest," Essop said.

He said that the negotiating text now includes a goal of keeping us well below 2 degrees Celsius of warming, and a reference to a 1.5 degrees Celsius temperature limit.
"That's encouraging because it signals a stronger intention to cut emissions - although countries still need to outline how they'll achieve these goals," he added.