The Guardian- Climate change negotiators meeting in Bonn on Thursday came up with a last-minute compromise that observers hope will put the talks on track for a new global agreement on greenhouse gases.

 

Slow progress was made until the final hours, as nations wrangled over the wording of an 89-page draft text, intending to cut it down to a more manageable size. After two weeks, the text had been cut by just four pages to 85.

 

But shortly before the talks were scheduled to finish, countries agreed that the co-chairs of the negotiations should be allowed to make their own alterations to the text, and present it to all countries for approval, probably in late July. This should be a quicker process, though there is no guarantee that countries will not try to re-draw the new draft when it becomes available.

 

The talks in Bonn were a staging post on the way to a crunch conference in Paris this December, at which countries are supposed to sign a new global agreement on limiting greenhouse gas emissions, to take effect from 2020 when current emissions commitments run out.

 

The talks have been mired in discussions ranging from concern over whether rich countries will follow through on their current pledges to provide financial assistance to the poor world, to arcane quibbles over single words in the text.

 

At one point, the discussion was divided over whether to use the terms “differentiated commitments/contributions”, referring to targets on cutting emissions, or the term “commitments/contributions/action”. The former was preferred by China, the latter by the US.

 

The distinction may seem trivial, but it points to some of the entrenched attitudes that have dogged the talks over more than two decades.

 

“Differentiated” comes from a term used in the original UN treaties, as “common but differentiated responsibilities” was used as the way of encoding the fact that all countries, developed and developing, have an interest in alleviating climate change, but that their responsibilities varied based on historical emissions and economic development.

 

 

PHOTO: International delegates during a group meeting at Bonn, Germany.

CREDIT: IISD.