In ministerial negotiations, search is on for ambition and finance

7 December 2015

Ministers arrived at the Paris climate talks and are getting down to business in high-level negotiation sessions. They face a distinct choice between a deal that that can keep climate change in check and one that would see climate chaos. 
The draft text still contains a host of options through which ministers need to sift. Depending on what they do with the options on the table, the deal could be strong and ambitious or watered-down and ineffective. The ability of this deal to stave off devastating levels of warming now rests on whether the ministers can step up and bring new levels of political will to the talks.  

On the ground in Paris, CAN members made the following comments: 

“At this stage in proceedings, it's like teenagers going to the school prom. Negotiators have driven their countries to the dance. We now need ministers to stop flirting with each other and seal the deal. The outcome in Paris must be balanced between a 'solidarity package' of adaptation, loss and damage and finance and an 'ambition package' of review and ratchet of mitigation pledges. There are countries here who are questioning the need for an early review and ratchet of their pledges are risking a 3-degree world. That is a dangerous game with only a few days to go."
-Mohamed Adow, Christian Aid
 
"Paris needs to send a signal that the era of fossil fuels is coming to an end, so that businesses can plan for a carbon-free future.  So the language in the Agreement needs to be clear.  Once the direction is set, the Agreement then needs to provide the means for getting there. That's the mechanism to scale up ambition every five years.  What we can't do is wait for the first review or stock-take to happen in 2024 or 2025, because that will set in stone the current pledges.  And we know that they are no-where near tough enough to deliver 2C, let alone the 1.5C which the most vulnerable countries want.  That's why the first stock-take, and ratchet up, has to happen by 2018.
-Martin Kaiser, Greenpeace

"Mitigation finance is the key to unlocking further ambition and a strong long-term goal. If you don’t have mitigation finance, you won’t get a 2-degree deal. Rich countries are saying that if you want collective, quantifiable commitments in finance, developing countries also need to donate. This is brinkmanship, and this is holding the negotiations hostage. If countries wait until the very last minute to make a commitment on finance—we’ve been there, done that—it doesn’t work. Countries need to bring offers to the table now."

-Celine Charveriat, Oxfam
 
Webcast: The press conference was webcast live and is available on demand here: http://unfccc6.meta-fusion.com/cop21/events/2015-12-07-11-00-climate-action-network-latest-developments-at-cop21 

CAN will be holding a press briefing Tuesday, December 8, at 11:00 CEST. For a one-to-one interview with our spokespeople, please contact Ria Voorhaar, CAN International on +49 157 3173 5568 or email: rvoorhaar@climatenetwork.org.

Climate Action Network (CAN) is a global network of over 900 NGOs working to promote government and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels. More at: www.climatenetwork.org 

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