{"id":30684,"date":"2015-11-10T11:11:04","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T00:11:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nofibs.com.au\/?p=30684"},"modified":"2019-04-16T13:31:19","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T03:31:19","slug":"canada-welcomed-at-paris-precop-climate-ministerial-meeting-says-takvera-cop21","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.nofibs.com.au\/canada-welcomed-at-paris-precop-climate-ministerial-meeting-says-takvera-cop21\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada welcomed at Paris #PreCOP #climate Ministerial meeting says @takvera #COP21"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"20151108-Canada-McKenna-at-Precop-feature\"<\/a>
\nA high level informal Ministerial pre-summit climate conference is currently under way in Paris to try and close some of the differences in negotiating positions to set up momentum for the Paris Climate Conference. The outstanding highlight has been the return of Canada to the serious climate discussion table, although it is still very early to see how strong Canada’s climate policy and negotiating position will be.<\/p>\n

The French Government is putting a lot of diplomatic effort into the UN climate conference (COP21), due to start on Monday November 30 with an initial leaders summit with more than 100 Heads of State attending. <\/p>\n

The Draft negotiating text is currently some 55 pages in length with many options which need debating and deciding upon before the end of the conference. <\/p>\n

We know that country pledges, known as INDCs, many of them conditional, will realise a global temperature increase of at least 2.7 to 3 degrees Celsius this century, and that’s with optimistic calculations including all conditional pledges. Yet countries affiliated with the UNFCCC have already declared the need to limit temperatures to no more than 2 degrees C this century, with many countries arguing that 1.5 degrees needs to be the limit for safety and survival of island nations and tropical regions. (see for example the Suva Declaration<\/a> (PDF))<\/p>\n

The latest informal negotiations, colloquially known as Pre-cop, started on Sunday in Paris and will conclude on Tuesday. These talks were called by French Foreign Affairs Minister Laurent Fabius, who will also chair the work of the UN climate conference. <\/p>\n

“The essence of life on our planet is at stake, it is an absolute urgency” (“”C’est la vie m\u00eame sur notre plan\u00e8te qui est en cause, l’urgence est absolue”,”) said Fabius introducing the informal meeting of ministers. He told the gathering that they need to find the path of compromise on the largest number of issues, of the need to give political momentum to the negotiations.<\/p>\n

“It’s our responsibility as ministers and heads of delegation to give political impetus and facilitate what should be the final agreement,” said Laurent Fabius. <\/p>\n

This Pre-COP entails a meeting of more than 60 Energy and Environment Ministers to further work on theme areas of: fairness, ambition, post-2020 financial support and pre-2020 actions.<\/p>\n

Some of the important areas that need progressing include financial aid for developing countries to finance climate policies for mitigation and adaptation, the importance of setting global long-term objectives, the distribution of the effort between industrialized countries and developing and least developed nations, and the upward revision of the commitments made \u200b\u200bby States to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG).<\/p>\n

A study from October found that Rich nations lag in ‘fair share’ of climate action<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Australia promises much but substance unclear<\/h3>\n

Australian Environment Minister Greg Hunt was there and spoke on the Sunday.<\/p>\n

\n

Spoke at #PreCOP<\/a> in Paris today about our commitment to tackling climate change & keeping warming to below 2 degrees pic.twitter.com\/G5u6KxcSKF<\/a><\/p>\n

— Greg Hunt (@GregHuntMP) November 8, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n