(MENAFN- The Peninsula)
By Emmanuel Jarry
PARIS: Governments have made a "very significant first step" to rein in climate change with national plans for action but more than 30 core questions remain unsolved before a summit on global warming starts in Paris on Nov. 30 a French document shows.
The document prepared for an informal meeting of about 60 ministers from around the world in Paris next week and seen by Reuters highlights problems such as how to increase finance to help developing nations cope with climate change.
The five-page briefing lists more than 30 questions on issues such as how to set a long-term goal to limit warming or how to review national plans for action underscoring how much still remains to be resolved before the Nov. 30-Dec. 11 summit.
Next week's informal ministerial meeting organised by France after formal U.N. negotiations ended last month will be the last before the start of the summit.
The briefing also notes progress because more than 150 nations led by China and the United States have already issued plans to limit greenhouse gas emissions beyond 2020 known as Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs).
"Although they are insufficient to put the world today on a path to limit temperature increase below 2°Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) INDCs must be recognized as a very significant first step forward in that direction" it says.
Almost 200 governments agreed a goal in 2010 of limiting warming to 2C above pre-industrial times to limit heat waves downpours and floods that can disrupt food and water supplies as well as a creeping rise in global sea levels.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius outlining hopes for the Nov. 8-10 ministerial meeting on Friday said it would be a "sort of dress rehearsal" for the summit.
"The objective is to find a path to an agreement on the largest number of options possible" he told a news conference.
In May Fabius had laid out a timetable at U.N. negotiations that included French hopes a "pre-agreement" on some key issues by October a deadline that has been missed.
Fabius said the ministerial meeting would divide into four groups. Ministers would discuss how to share action to tackle climate change beyond 2020 between developed and developing nations the level of ambition in the deal actions before 2020 and finance for developing nations he said.
Many governments say Paris will have to agree a mechanism to ratchet up pledges for cuts in emissions to reach the 2C goal.
One of the questions in the background document for instance is: "How to express the need for a regular progression towards more ambitious national targets and actions?"
Earlier on Friday a multi-billion dollar fund set up by the United Nations to help poor countries tackle climate change approved its first eight projects worth a total $168 million.
The Green Climate Fund will be one of the main channels for donor countries to mobilise over $100 billion a year in aid for developing nations by 2020 from public and private sources.
Reuters