Geneva Climate Change Talks Conclude With Formal Negotiating Text

Following seven days of negotiations, 194 nations convened in Geneva agreed the negotiating text that is the basis for the accord they hope to reach in Paris at the end of 2015, to come into effect in 2020.

“We now have a formal negotiating text, which contains the views and concerns of all countries. The Lima Draft has now been transformed into the negotiating text and enjoys the full ownership of all countries,” Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said in a press release [pdf].

Full transparency, optimism, trust-building, constructive spirit and the speed at which the negotiators worked were named as elements of the success of the talks.

While the text has become longer and now comprises 86 pages, “countries are now fully aware of each other’s positions,” Figueres said at a press briefing today.

The negotiating text covers the substantive content of what will be the eventual agreement, including mitigation, adaptation, finance, technology and capacity building.

According to the press release, “countries worked to identify the main choices, put their views forward and add more sharpened options to the text.”

“Many of the additions underscored the fact that it is very necessary for the Paris Agreement to be in line with science,” Figueres told journalists.

“Many parties emphasised the need for institutional support as we progress in increasing our levels of effort at both mitigation and adaptation,” Figueres said at the briefing. “Many parties emphasised the need for institutional support whether that be support for adaptation, certainly for finance, for technology, for capacity building.”

The negotiating text is available on the UNFCCC website and will be translated into six official languages of the United Nations. The text then will be communicated to the world’s capitals by the UNFCCC secretariat in the first quarter of 2015.

“As for the legal nature of the agreement, this will only be clarified later in the year,” Figueres added.

Intense negotiations will be undertaken throughout the year up to the December negotiations in Paris. These include formal sessions planned for June, early September and third week of October, as well as informal ministerial-level meetings throughout the year, including the Major Economies Forum, the Petersburg Climate Dialogue, and the African Ministerial Conference of the Environment, together with the upcoming Group of 7 industrialised countries (G7) and G20 meetings. The text per se will only be discussed during the formal negotiating sessions.

“There is not one single country that is not touched in one way or another way by climate and there is no one country that wants to be left behind by an agreement that will have an impact on their future,” Figueres said at the briefing.

Civil Society Reaction

At a media briefing organised by the civil society discussing the outcome of the UN climate negotiations in Geneva, Julie-Anne Richards of the Climate Justice Programme said, “We would hope that ministers and leaders will have specific meetings on how to scale up financial support for climate action; how to treat richer and poor countries fairly within the Paris Agreement and to ensure that there is a high level meeting on ‘loss and damage’ this year.”

“Those [governments] that recognise the urgency of the climate crisis demanded concrete steps to increase action in the critical pre-2020 period through stronger targets, more finance and technology transfers and by focusing on transforming our polluting energy system,” Asad Rehman, head of international climate at Friends of the Earth (EWNI), said at the briefing.

“We welcome the fact that strong, clear proposals on setting a long term emissions budget and sharing it fairly are in the draft text for the first time. These proposals from Bolivia and Ethiopia are getting serious attention,” said Lidy Nacpil, coordinator at Jubilee South Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development.

Elena Bourtchouladze (LLB, DEA) holds a PhD degree in Public International Law from the Graduate Institute (Geneva) with focus on the WTO TRIPS Agreement and WIPO Conventions. She is a researcher at IP-Watch, and has experience in regulatory and litigation at a multinational company and an international organisation.