Climate draft adopted ahead December’s holistic pact

NEGOTIATORS in Geneva adopted a climate blueprint Friday, a symbolic milestone in the fraught UN process that must culminate in a universal pact in Paris in December.

Assembled over the past six days, the 86-page draft plan for limiting manmade global warming was gavelled through at the close of six days of talks, prompting applause from delegates.

“The task of this session has been achieved,” UN climate chief Christiana Figueres told reporters ahead of the closing.

“We have a text today…, the formal negotiating text that will be the basis for negotiations for the next few months until we get to Paris”, where the final pact will be adopted.

Ever since the 2009 Copenhagen conference failed to deliver a world agreement, the 195 nations gathered under the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) have been working on a new project for adoption by the end of this year.

Set to be signed at the November 30-December 11 UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris, the pact must enter into force by 2020 to further the UN goal of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.

Scientists warn that at current greenhouse gas emission trends, Earth is on track for double that, or more — a recipe for catastrophic droughts, storms, floods and rising sea levels.

Negotiators emerged from the last COP in Lima last December, with a hard-fought framework text that remained hotly contested.

The February 8-13 Geneva talks, one of three special sessions added to this year’s official UN climate agenda, was tasked with “streamlining” the Lima document.