COP21: Final draft drawn up in Paris, 3 key issues remain

A final draft text for a climate change agreement in Paris has been released, with COP21 president Laurent Fabius claiming world leaders "must now be prepared to work overnight and tomorrow" to hammer out the real deal.

The final draft agreement, drawn up this afternoon, has made big progress on mitigation and adaptation, transfer of low-carbon technologies and forests.

The 29-page document has been streamlined from the previous 43-page version drawn up over the weekend, with a three-quarter reduction in bracketed text which indicates areas of disagreement.

Announcing the final draft, Fabius said that the issue of mitigation and adaption was almost resolved and that negotiators were “closer to concluding on transparency”. He said they had also made initial progress on transfer of technologies and forests.

Fabius said that negotiators were closer to concluding on the issue of loss and damage, as views have got closer over the week.

However, he pointed out that 3 “cross-cutting issues” remain – differentiation, financing and the level of the agreement – which would be the focus point for the coming sessions.

On the final target for temperature increases, the new text appears to introduce a new weaker option. The Saturday version of the text had two options – limiting global warming to “below 1.5C” or “well below 2C”. However the lastest version added an option to limit warming simply to “below 2C”.

Commenting on the new draft text, Germana Canzi, senior international analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), said: “The French Presidency has done a very good job in moving negotiations forwards and ensuring there is positive momentum towards a deal after the ambition generated by global leaders last week.

“Ministers have clearly made huge progress in the last few days, but there are still issues to be resolved, including on the long-term goal that is ultimately needed to solve climate change.

“Many countries have come into negotiations recognising that a clean energy transition and a decoupling of emissions from economic growth are underway already, but Paris could be a key accelerator towards the end of the fossil fuel age.”

Negotiators paving the way for a global climate change agreement in Paris had produced a draft accord in record time over the weekend, leaving this full week of minister-led talks to clinch an ambitious deal.

This story originally appeared on www.edie.net