After two weeks of negotiations almost 200 countries agreed on a framework for implementation of the Paris climate agreement<\/b>
\nWeary climate negotiators limped across the finish line Saturday after days of round-the-clock talks, striking a deal that keeps the world moving forward with plans to curb carbon emissions. But the agreement fell well short of the breakthrough that scientists \u2013 and many of the conference\u2019s own participants \u2013 say is needed to avoid the cataclysmic impacts of a warming planet.
The deal struck on Saturday at a global conference in the heart of Polish coal country, where some 25,000 delegates had gathered, adds legal flesh to the bones of the 2015 Paris agreement, setting the rules of the road for how nearly 200 countries cut their production of greenhouse gases and monitor each other\u2019s progress.
The agreement also prods countries to step up their ambition in fighting climate change, a recognition of the fact that the world\u2019s efforts have not gone nearly far enough. But, like the landmark 2015 agreement in Paris, it does not bind countries to hit their targets. And observers questioned whether it was sufficient given the extraordinary stakes.
\u201cWe are driven by our sense of humanity and commitment to the well being of the earth that sustains us and those generations that will replace us,\u201d Micha\u0142 Kurtyka, the Polish environmental official who provided over the two-week international summit, said late Saturday as the marathon talks drew to a close.
Kurtyka noted the difficulty of finding global consensus on issues so technical and, in many ways, politically fraught. \u201cUnder thee circumstances, every single step forward is a big achievement,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd through this package, you have made 1,000 little steps forward together.\u201d
But even as he spoke, the outcome raised immediate questions about whether those steps were large enough.
\u201cIn the climate emergency we\u2019re in, slow success is no success,\u201d said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development. \u201cIn an emergency, if the ambulance doesn\u2019t get you to the hospital in time, you die. If the firetruck doesn\u2019t get to your house in time, it burns down.\u201d
Negotiators said the agreement was the best that could have been expected given the limited agenda for the talks and the need for a global consensus. Virtually every nation on Earth was represented at Katowice, ranging from small island countries that threaten to be swallowed by rising seas \u2013 and that pushed for a crisis-level response \u2013 to the United States, which has said it plans to withdraw from the Paris process.
The United States, the world\u2019s largest economy and its second-largest polluter, remains in the agreement until at least 2020. It played an at-times contentious role in the negotiations, with its officials rankling fellow delegates by initially refusing to accept a landmark climate report and later putting on a presentation touting the virtues of fossil fuels.
But fellow negotiators said it was mostly notable for its absence.
\u201cThe US was the driving force in the run-up to Paris. Once they decide to no longer be a part of the agreement, they can\u2019t be a driver,\u201d said Jochen Flasbarth, a top German delegate.
Flasbarth said the minimised US role was particularly apparent in negotiations with China, which did not feel as much pressure to ramp up its ambition in fighting climate change as it otherwise might have because the United States was not applying it. China is the world\u2019s largest producer of greenhouse gases.
\u201cThe US role here is somewhat schizophrenic \u2013 pushing coal and dissing science on the one hand, but also working hard in the room for strong transparency rules,\u201d said Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Centre for Climate and Energy Solutions, a Virginia-based non-profit group. \u201cOver the long haul, making the agreement operational will do more to strengthen climate ambition that any immediate political signals.\u201d
In another sign of a more difficult environment for climate negotiations this year, text establishing a large part of a planned carbon trading system was scuttled after Brazil, one of the world\u2019s leading greenhouse gas producers, blocked proposals for counting certain emissions.
Brazil led a push for lenient rules that other nations said would weaken the system, which is intended to incentivise emissions cuts by creating a market price. With negotiators unable to reach a deal, the issue was punted until next year \u2013 a move that Boston College environmental law professor David Wirth said could \u201cdelay or undermine confidence among the private sector in undertaking climate-friendly investments \u2013 one of the most important purposes of the Paris Rulebook.\u201d
This year\u2019s conference \u2013 an annual UN-sponsored exercise now in its 24th year \u2013 came against the backdrop of a series of increasingly dire assessments by scientists.
Specifically, an October report from the UN\u2019s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that the world was far off-track in its efforts to avoid the most catastrophic impacts from warming temperatures. It concluded that a \u201crapid and far-reaching\u201d transformation of the world\u2019s energy, transport and other sectors will be necessary over the next dozen years to avoid warming the globe more than 1.5 degree Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels.
But rather than lighting a fire under the world to move with more urgency, the report became a source of political friction during the talks in Poland.
Early in the summit, the Trump administration joined Saudi Arabia, Russia and Kuwait in blocking official acceptance of the report\u2019s findings, arguing that any agreement should merely \u201cnote\u201d its existence rather than \u201cwelcome\u201d its warnings.
The semantic fight encapsulated the shift of the United States under President Donald Trump from a country pushing fellow countries to act more aggressively to one that refuses to acknowledge the conclusion of the world\u2019s top scientists.
A chorus of activists and diplomats and national delegates \u2013 none more vocal than a coalition of small island states already feeling the impact of rising seas \u2013 had implored leaders of the summit to recognise the content of the IPCC report. The issue continued to be debated into the conference\u2019s closing hours, along with a bevy of more technical disagreements.
The conference was scheduled to end Friday, but repeated deadlines for closing out the talks came and went, with negotiators haggling through the night and through Saturday. By then, some negotiators had nearly lost their voices. Bleary-eyed journalists slept on chairs or FaceTimed with their loved ones from afar. UN staffers, security officials and the rest of the dwindling crowd at the cavernous conference centre \u2013 built on the site of a former coal waste dump \u2013 speculated over when the talks would finally reach their end.
The once-busy pavilions \u2013 which once pulsated with a seemingly endless stream of lectures and demonstrations of new technologies \u2013 were being broken apart. A group of Pacific Islanders sat in a small circle, playing a guitar and drums. A group of Austrians seemed determined to clear out any remaining wine, beer and sweets in their corner of the conference centre, and to invite passers-by to join in.
After two weeks under the cold, unremittingly grey skies of a December in Poland, negotiators are due to meet in the sun and warmth of Santiago, Chile, next winter. In between, the UN is hosting a climate summit next September that observers say now takes on crucial importance as a measure of whether countries are serious about upping their ambition.
Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who led a previous round of UN climate talks and is now leader of the WWF\u2019s global climate and energy practice, said world leaders will need to come through in New York on the promises they have made in Katowice.
\u201cAnything less,\u201d he said, \u201cis a failure in political and moral leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n