The 20th Conference of the Parties (Cop20) has achieved the bare minimum needed to keep negotiations on track towards a post-2020 climate deal to be adopted at next year's make-or-break summit in Paris, France.
The Lima Call for Climate Action package adopted early yesterday morning achieves some modest progress on the format of countries' post-2020 commitments and puts in place basic elements of the new deal. It outlines some non-mandatory information that may accompany countries' pledges, provides for countries to justify why their pledge is adequate and equitable, requires each party's pledge to better its current commitment and requires an assessment of these pledges' aggregate impact ahead of the Paris summit.
But delegates postponed dealing with the most contentious aspects until next year. This leaves serious obstacles still to be overcome on the road to the Paris – and a positive outcome is by no means assured.
This year's annual UN talks in Lima, Peru, started amid a sense of optimism following a joint US-China declaration on their intended climate action — alongside the EU's adoption of a 40pc greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target for 2030 in October. But this positivity was quickly eroded by parties' intransigence on key issues, which blocked progress well into the second week and resulted in talks overrunning by nearly two days.
Negotiators ultimately failed to capitalise on the positive momentum created by the US-China deal or to respond adequately to growing popular support for stronger action as illustrated by several protest marches this year – including one in New York that attracted more than 400,000 people.
Developed and developing countries remained deeply divided over how to reflect the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change's long established principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDRC) in the new deal.
Developing countries wanted pledges under the new, global deal to also cover climate finance and assistance for adaptation, alongside mitigation. Developed countries were resolutely against this, arguing that while finance and adaptation were an essential part of the deal, the Durban agreement's mandate was for all parties to adopt mitigation commitments
In the end, the draft decision on the format and scope of country's pledges does not specify that these should also cover finance and adaptation. Parties adopted a resolution that underscores their commitment to reaching an ambitious agreement in 2015 that reflects the CBDRC principle, in light of "different national circumstances."
But the issue of differentiation between rich and poor countries will no doubt continue to sow division and make reaching agreement on the new deal next year extremely difficult.
Delegates' chief challenge at Lima was to decide the format and scope of country's pledges under a post-Kyoto deal - as well as the upfront information needed to make these clear, transparent and understandable.
A decision on intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) was crucial to allow countries to table their post-2020 pledges early next year – or by March 2014 as expected of larger, industrialised economies — in time for a post-Kyoto deal to be agreed in December.
But in the end, negotiators failed to adopt a common format for INDCs and decided that any information to accompany these will be non-compulsory.
This information "may" include quantifiable information on a base year, time frames and/or implementation periods, scope and coverage, planning processes, assumptions and methodological approaches including for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions accounting. So countries will freely choose both the type of INDC and the accompanying information that they submit.
Alongside this information, a party may also show why it considers its INDC fair and ambitious, in light of its national circumstances, and how it contributes towards the objective of keeping the average temperature rise below 2°C.
The text is somewhat strengthened by the stipulation that each party's INDC has to "represent a progression beyond its current undertaking." But this could also weigh heaviest on those countries with the most stringent climate policies in place, while those countries with less ambitious measures would only need to improve on this in small increments.
Parties have until 1 October 2015 to communicate their INDCs, which will then be published on the UNFCCC website, after which a synthesis report on these pledges' aggregate effect will be released by 1 November 2015. This means an ex ante review of INDCs' adequacy against the international 2°C limit and fairness could be undertaken, but it's not clear if this will happen and if so, how. Even if such a review does take place, it will be so close to the Paris summit, countries are unlikely to have the time to amend their INDCs in response to scrutiny – even if they wanted to.
Alongside the draft decision on INDCs, a 43-page text that will form the basis of the 2015 deal was also drafted by the ad-hoc working group on the Durban Platform (ADP) co-chairs at the Lima summit.
The ADP aims to intensify its work and make available "a negotiating text for a protocol, another legal instrument or an agreed outcome with legal force under the [UN Framework on Climate Change] Convention applicable to all parties" before May 2015, to allow countries enough time to scrutinize the text before deciding whether to approve it in December.
The draft is supposed to broadly reflect all countries' views, but parties still have to decide if they are willing to accept the co-chairs' non-paper as the legal basis of next year's negotiations, which will start with the next ADP session to be held from 8-13 February in Geneva, Switzerland.
During the Lima summit, many developing countries repeatedly objected to this paper being used as the basis for negotiations on the grounds that it did not fairly reflect their views and concerns. Instead, they wanted another, formal legal text to replace it. By contrast, developed countries mostly supported the use of the co-chairs' informal paper as a departure point.
On Friday, German environment minister, Barbara Hendricks, said the elements text laid a good foundation for the 2015 agreement and contained clear political options for the most important issues.
"It is not a surprise that the big questions will not be answered in Lima. The legal nature of the agreement, the differentiation of countries and their mitigation commitments or the role of climate financing," she said.
"But the elements text will be a good starting point to find common solutions for these issues next year. I think that there will a solution that will deliver enough information to compare the intended the contribution and see where we stand in relation to the 2°C limit," she said.
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