After four days of near deadlock at the climate change talks here, Friday showed some signs of progress with the emergence of the first official draft for an agreement that calls for at least 50% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050 from 1990 levels while leaving open the question of whether the global rise in temperatures needed to be limited to within 2 degrees or 1.5 degrees centigrade of pre-industrial levels.
The draft text came from the chairperson of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), one of the two groups constituted under the Bali Action Plan, whose mandate is to finalise long-term actions by countries, typically by 2050.
The other group on Kyoto Protocol (AWG-KP) is supposed to finalise the emission reduction targets for the rich countries for the period starting 2013.
Today?s draft text, proposed by Michael Zammit Cutajar, chairperson of AWG-LCA, has tried to include the demands of all the major groupings and has kept the different options in brackets, indicating that a decision on these was yet to be taken.
Therefore on the emissions targets for 2050, the draft text says that countries ?should collectively reduce global emissions by at least [50] [85] [95] % from 1990 levels by 2050 and should ensure that the global emissions continue to decline thereafter?.
The draft text wants the rich countries, as a group, to ?reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by [75-85] [at least 80-95] [more than 95] % from 1990 levels by 2050?.
The minimum numbers in the brackets are in line with what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been saying is necessary to avoid catastrophic results of global warming.
The text does not indicate any specific year when global emissions should be made to peak, saying it should be done ?as soon as possible, recognising that the time frame for peaking will be longer in the developing countries? and ?bearing in mind that the social and economic development and poverty eradication are the first and overriding priorities of developing countries?.
Cutajar has called for an informal meeting of all the member countries this evening to discuss the draft and hopefully reach an agreement over some of the bracketed figures.
The draft has also included the demands of the small-island countries that the effort should be to contain the global rise in temperatures to within 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels and not 2 degrees Celsius as many other countries had expressed as the stated objective. After consultations with the negotiating teams, the draft text is to be presented to the environment ministers, who are all coming here on Saturday.