COPENHAGEN — After a week of U.N. climate talks, some money is finally on the table and a draft agreement has been circulated. Now the really hard bargaining begins.
The draft proposal was sent around Friday to the 192-nation conference, although it set no firm figures on financing or cutting greenhouse-gas emissions. And the negotiations on sharing the burden are likely to still go down to the wire and await the arrival of the world’s leaders next week.
“It’s time to begin to focus on the big picture,” said Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate official. “The serious discussion on finance and targets has begun.”
A much-disputed 188-page text was whittled down to a mere seven pages of stark options on how much global warming is acceptable and how deeply nations must individually and collectively cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
Options ranged from nearly eliminating global emissions to cutting them in half by 2050.
The document forced countries to abandon long-held posturing on secondary topics and focus on crunch issues. Starting today, environment ministers will be able to go through the 46 points of text one by one, checking off some and leaving the toughest for the 110 heads of state and government arriving at the end of next week.
Many countries voiced reservations about the structure of the document or some of its clauses. “But that’s all right. That’s what negotiations are all about,” de Boer said.
Todd Stern, the special U.S. climate envoy, called the text “constructive” but singled out the section on helping poor countries lower their growth of carbon emissions as “unbalanced.” He said the requirements on industrial countries were tougher than on developing nations and the section was not “a basis for negotiation.”
It said all countries together should reduce emissions by a range of 50 percent to 95 percent by 2050, and rich countries should cut emissions by 25 percent to 40 percent by 2020, in both cases using 1990 as the baseline year.
So far, industrial nations’ pledges to cut emissions have amounted to far less than the minimum.
The draft agreement called for new funding in the next three years by wealthy countries to help poor nations adapt to a changing climate but mentioned no figures. And it made no specific proposals on long-term help for developing countries.
In downtown Copenhagen, police detained 75 people in the first street protests linked to the conference. About 200 people rallied in the area where corporate CEOs were meeting to discuss the role of business in global warming.
The protesters broke into small groups, banging drums and shouting, “Mind your business. This is our climate!”
