Sulaiman Philip
The Paris negotiations in 2015 will, it is hoped, set concrete time tables to deal with greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The 196 countries who attended the talks in Lima agreed to have prepared and submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) which will guide the finalization of a new treaty.
These lists will, in the words of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, help in “finalizing the institutional architecture for a mechanism on loss and damage.” INDC’s are the commitments each country will make to stave off an average global temperature rise of 2°C – the point at which many scientist believe climate change becomes irreversible.
The negotiations were difficult with delegates uncertain how to differentiate the obligations of responsibilities of developing and developed countries. The bloc of developing countries were eager for established economies to underwrite the Green Climate Fund to the tune of $10 billion. The bloc left Peru with the fund – designed to direct funding from developed nations to developing nations most vulnerable to climate change – oversubscribed.
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