World leaders reach deal at UN climate talks in Peru

The world leader today met in the early hours to conduct the latest round of UN climate talks and end the conference nearly 33 hours later than actually scheduled.

The participating countries reached a deal that is expected to barely keep the hopes alive for a meaningful global policy agreement next year.

The conference, which started on December 1, was convened with two main goals:

• Firstly, to give their agreement to a series of measures aimed at cutting the emissions from greenhouse gases which are responsible for climate change and global warming.
• Secondly, to pave the way for a policy deal that will include action from all nations during the next edition of climate talks scheduled exactly a year after from now in Paris.

The agreement on second part of the goal fell short of expectations despite an impassioned plea from US climate change special envoy Todd Stern, who asked the participants to give their nod to what he said was about perfect text in order to foster progress next year.

“We don’t have time for more lengthy negotiations. I believe we will live to regret it if we allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good,” Stern said.

The Lima agreement was adopted by the member countries just hours after a previous draft was turned down by the developing nations who accused rich counterparts of shirking their responsibilities to fight the serious issue of global warming and pay for its impacts.

The talks were supposed to initially conclude at 6 pm local time on Friday, but the impasse over some issues continued until nearly 2 am local time on Sunday. The member countries were able to conclude the meet after Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Peru’s environment minister who chaired the conference, kept pushing delegates to build consensus on key points.

Before midnight, Pulgar-Vidal presented the fourth draft hoping that it would satisfy all the parties and address their concerns.

According to the sources, the progress in Lima talks was mostly technical as it has set out guidelines for actions to reduce emissions, financial contributions and a timetable for the Paris talks.