First week of Lima climate talks end with no breakthrough, but hope still remains – ‘We have heard a lot about pledges. That is why the theme of the Lima conference is ‘action’.’

By Liang Junqian; Editing by Mioh Song
7 December 2014   LIMA (Xinhua) – This year’s global climate conference wrapped up its first week in the Peruvian capital with no breakthrough, thus leaving heavy workload to next week’s high-level negotiations to be attended by government ministers. The 20th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is being held here in Lima from Dec. 1 to Dec. 12. The meeting is intended to pave the way for a new agreement on climate change, planned to be passed at the end of 2015 in Paris and come into force in 2020. To that end, the Lima conference is supposed to take concrete steps to secure a draft version of an international emissions-cutting agreement for the post-2020 period, making it possible to replace the Kyoto protocol with a new universal deal in late 2015. However, different interests of parties concerned cast a cloud over the ongoing meeting, whose outcome is still hard to tell. Climate finance has been a buzzword in Lima these days. Some rich countries want an agreement seeking self-driven mitigation actions. But developing countries, including most African countries, prefer a comprehensive deal that includes mitigation and adaptation and finance. Su Wei, deputy head of the Chinese delegation, said: “We have heard a lot about pledges. That is why the theme of the Lima conference is ‘action.'” [more]

First week of Lima climate talks end with no breakthrough, but hope still remains