Diplomatic row erupts after co-chairs hold talks minus developing nations; third draft of Paris climate change agreement emerges at Bonn
The Bonn climate change negotiations produced a third draft for the Paris talks by Friday afternoon. The draft had stretched to 33 pages, but a preliminary read suggested it had brought back all countries’ concerns on board but left substantial differences unreconciled.
Over the past three days, the developed countries have kept advocating that contentious issues be left untouched by negotiators for the ministers to resolve in Paris - a move developing countries strongly objected to.
It meant lobbing the most trenchant technical and legal issues in the lap of ministers, aware that the developing world’s political leadership would be less prepared than their equivalents from the North to deal with the details. With the developed world unwilling to engage, the differences remained embedded within brackets in the third and final draft to emerge from Bonn.
At the time of writing this, countries had begun scrutinising the draft of the core Paris agreement and other draft decisions (adding up to 55 pages) in their respective groups before one final full house and open meeting at Bonn.
Developing countries in the G77+China faced a piquant situation. The distrust for the two-chairs of the negotiations, one from Algeria and the other from the US, had only increased over the past five days. On Monday when talks began, they had used the analogy of racism under apartheid while alleging the co-chairs were biased.
The group had assessed the co-chairs’ first draft of the Paris agreement heavily favouring the developed countries (particularly the US) and then they found the co-chairs asking developing countries to justify their concerns before permitting alterations in the draft. The relations soured further during the week. On Thursday night, the co-chairs tried to conduct a stock-taking meeting for all countries without the presence of 134 countries from the G77+China group. It set off an unprecedented diplomatic row.
Even as the co-chairs tried to justify the move, Venezuela’s negotiator Claudia Salerno rushed in to throw a stern warning at the co-chairs, “We are disappointed with this. We have seen this move. There is never a good second part to a movie. This will be a really nasty Copenhagen opportunity,” she said, alluding to the failed Copenhagen meeting in 2009 when many developing countries feeling betrayed had rammed the conference to failure.
On Friday morning, the G77+China chair South Africa picked up where Venezuela had let off, “You cannot wish the Group away. We are not an inconvenience to be ignored in order for you to keep to your schedule. Just as climate change might be an inconvenient truth, the G77 and China will not be sidelined to a footnote in a text. It seems as if the Group needs to remind you that there will be no agreement in Paris without the full participation of the Group.”
At first read, the harsh words seemed to have worked. The co-chairs had compiled the third draft in a more balanced manner, developing countries’ negotiators assessed. At the time of writing this, the G77+China as well as the other countries on Friday evening in Bonn were assessing what of their issues had been reflected in the third draft and if it had been displayed exactly where they wanted. This is not the final round and the draft will have to shrink further to become the Paris package.
Who would be tasked to do so of the various authorities and how would the shrink it as a neutral empire, if at all? By 5:30 pm in Bonn, that question had not been addressed. This too, like the rest of the decisions at the negotiations, would have to be taken by consensus and in trust, which by Friday evening had turned wafer-thin.
