Last stop before Paris
The final five negotiating days started in Bonn on Monday 19 October to produce a final negotiating text to allow nations to reach an agreement on the new treaty to protect the climate at COP-21 in Paris in December 2015. Nearly 2,500 governments, stakeholders and media were present.
In the opening session on Monday 19 October, nations presented their views on the draft Paris agreement providing additional suggestions on an article-by-article basis. Many nations considered ideas were missing from the previous text document from September 2015. Several reintroduced text that would allow the use of markets to help make emission reductions more cost-effective, such as Brazil who requested that a paragraph on the use of markets should be placed in the draft Paris agreement. Canada added words that would allow formalised business engagement in the process, thereby improving the use of business expertise to help inform future decisions. Both additions are supported by BusinessEurope.
The secretariat worked overnight and issued a new negotiating text at 4.00 am on Tuesday. Later in the morning, nations at the meeting discussed the new text. Again some countries added more missing elements. It was agreed to create spin-off groups to discuss selected parts of the new document in closed surroundings on a face-to-face basis. These discussions will continue until Friday when a new text has been promised by the co-chairs when the meeting concludes at 6 pm. This text will be sent to COP21 to provide the basis for the new treaty on climate change.
The parties in the final plenary accepted the new text as their own. It no longer is the co-Chairs' text but will be the negotiating text when the negotiations start on Tuesday 1 December. This was the final technical meeting before the long-awaited COP21 summit. The final stop is Paris where more than 40 thousand participants are expected at Le Bourget. We will be posting from Paris where a new world-wide global deal on climate change is expected.
©Photograph courtesy of IISD/Earth Negotiations Bulletin