Having worked on the climate issue from 1986, back when it was a future threat, to present times, where it is the stuff of daily headlines, I have to admit that it would be easy to feel discouraged. We have squandered decades that would have allowed humanity to avoid the climate crisis altogether.

Still, I am more optimistic now than I have been in the last nine years. Nine years ago—2006—was also a year that changed everything.

It was the 2006 election which allowed Stephen Harper to form a minority government—even though cooperation between the Liberals and the NDP would have prevented this. (Conservatives had only 124 seats, the Liberals had 103 and the NDP had 29. Imagine what our country would have been spared had the opposition parties been willing to work together.)

My non-partisan approach to politics at Sierra Club had made me fully aware of how firmly Harper opposed climate action. It was recognizing the horrors of partisanship that led me to leave my position of 17 years as executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada and run for leader of the Green Party. I knew, especially given the climate threat, that we needed to find a new kind of politics.

I had tried to brief Stephen Harper for years. In the spring of 2005, I had a very revealing conversation with a Conservative MP who was actually in favour of climate action and believed his ideas would be in his party’s platform. I urged him to get Harper to make the commitment to Kyoto. Despite being sympathetic himself, he said, “We will never do that. Stephen will always see Kyoto as one of those UN things.”

And so it was that even with only a minority, with no vote in the House, within the first few weeks of becoming prime minister, Stephen Harper cancelled our commitment to Kyoto and the climate plan put in place less than a year before. That Canada had no meaningful plan to meet Kyoto from when we signed on in 1997 until 2005 was appalling. But the plan put forward in spring of 2005 would, according to the Pembina Institute, have led to Canada getting fairly close to our Kyoto target.

With no analysis and no debate, however, the whole climate plan was shut down and billions of dollars in funding cancelled. Harper dispatched his first environment minister, Rona Ambrose, to a global climate negotiation which she, ironically, chaired in spring 2006. The mantle of President of the Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was one occupied ex officio by Canada’s Minister of Environment. We had hosted the negotiations in Montreal, scant months before and held the presidency until the next Conference of the Parties could be held. Rona Ambrose inherited the mantle from Stéphane Dion. Other nations could barely believe that Canada was prepared to flout our legally binding Kyoto target (6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012) and replace it with 20 percent below 2006 levels by 2020 (which it’s now clear we won’t meet).

As Harper took a machete to our climate goals, gradually we seem to have forgotten we ever had them at all. It is as though we have a collective amnesia.

Did we ever have a plan? People, even MPs, seem to have completely forgotten. Harper has even cancelled his own weak targets to replace them with weaker ones as he did in Copenhagen in 2009. The House of Commons passed Bruce Hyer’s private members’ climate bill, Bill C-311, in 2010—only to have the unelected Senate kill it prior to a single day of committee meetings. (My friend and fellow Green Bruce Hyer, MP for Thunder Bay-Superior North, was an NDP MP when he managed to twist enough arms to get the bill passed.) The Senate had never abused its nominal power to kill a bill passed by the elected House in its entire history. But amnesia settled in.

Harper decreed that climate scientists were not allowed to speak with the media—so reporting on climate dropped by 70 percent. He violated a practice of all previous governments in disallowing opposition MPs inclusion on Canadian delegations to international meetings—especially on climate. And so opposition parties stopped sending MPs to the Conferences of the Parties. The manipulation to a deliberate forgetting was skilful and far more effective than I would have ever imagined.

It has become familiar framing to say that Canada lacks federal leadership—or that Stephen Harper has not been active on climate change. If only it were so. In fact, Stephen Harper has been hyper-active—boosting GHG emissions from a constant growth and expansion policy for the oil sands, while destroying any science to study or programmes to reduce GHG emissions at home.

In Lima at COP20, Canada agreed that all countries should table their planned emission and adaptation targets with the UN by March 31, 2015. The goal of achieving a binding comprehensive treaty by early December 2015 requires substantial advance analysis. Incredibly, not only did Canada miss the deadline, Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq has tried to blame the provinces for federal failure. She claims the data on GHG emissions from provincial governments is needed before Canada can develop its targets. The national media never asked the obvious question: How did the European Union coordinate 28 individual nation states into a shared submission by the deadline, while Canada could not handle talking to 10 provinces and 3 territories?

The so-called “sector by sector” approach isn’t a climate plan; it’s spin. Harper claims credit for a GHG emission downturn that was entirely related to the 2008 financial crisis, and which ever since has shown a steady rise. Stephen Harper signed on to the Copenhagen weak target without any intention of meeting it.

From my vantage point, as a longstanding participant in the annual UN Conferences of the Parties, Harper’s actions amount to sabotage.

So why am I optimistic?

The rest of the world is moving. The USA and China have announced targets. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the OECD, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) are all calling for carbon pricing and an end to fossil fuel subsidies. The IEA is calling for two-thirds of all known fossil fuel reserves to be left in the ground until at least 2050.

Last year was the first one in which GHG levels did not rise globally, in the absence of a major financial disaster; 2014 was also the first year in which global investments in renewable energy outpaced investments in fossil fuels. These are bets made by people who want to make money. They are not a manifestation of global altruism. In some parts of the world, the lifetime cost of a new solar facility is actually cheaper than the lifetime cost of new coal.

And my single largest source of optimism for success in Paris is the knowledge that Stephen Harper will not be Canada’s prime minister by October 20. We will have scant time—five weeks—to pull the new parliament together to re-orient Canada. I am encouraged that we will have many more Green MPs, working across party lines to make up for lost time—nine years of lost time. Canada’s delegation will once again include opposition parties and civil society organizations, and give a prominent role to First Nations and youth. We need to be the country at COP21 that twists arms and pushes others to deeper and stronger commitment. All this we can do. 2015 is the year that changes everything.

Elizabeth May is the Member of Parliament for Saanich Gulf-Islands and the leader of the Green Party of Canada.

Originally published in Focus Online.

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Elizabeth May has been a topic of hot debate in the lead up to the Canadian general election this October with her potential inclusion in the leaders debate.

There’s no forgetting Canada’s unfortunate climate reputation: as a country consistently ranked in the bottom five in the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI). Produced by Germanwatch, the CCPI evaluates the climate policies of the 58 countries responsible for over 90 per cent of global energy-related carbon emissions. Then there’s the Stephen Harper government’s never-ending support of the oil and tar sands industry. And we’ve all watched on as Harper continues to support the construction of the Keystone pipeline, which Obama has vetoed. The list of disastrous environmental policies goes on, which begs the question: is this election an opportunity for Canada to change it’s environmental trajectory?

At the most recent UN climate talks, May was the only leader of a Canadian political party to actually attend. In the lead up to the Paris negotiations, she is focused on changing Canada’s current environmental policy, which has severely deteriorated under the Harper government. May say down with The Verb last December to discuss her hopes in 2015, and the role of the Canadian Green Party in the lead up to the election and negotiations in Paris.

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Deadlines have come and gone. We had a Kyoto deadline (cancelled and then reneged), a Copenhagen deadline (undertaken by our current Prime Minister so the public claim is still made that “we are committed to the target,” while it is clear it will be missed by nearly 100%). This global deadline is no longer about politics and multilateral negotiations. It is about immovable red lines in atmospheric chemistry. In other words, the atmosphere is not negotiating with humanity. This is a deadline we, “we” meaning the community of nations, cannot afford to miss.

The odd thing is how little Canadians (the other political parties and media) are aware of the process. This was brought home to me when France’s President Francois Hollande spoke in Parliament in early November 2014. I was asked by reporters what I expected to hear in his speech. I suggested that as well as terrorism and the economy, he would be likely to focus on the climate crisis and the upcoming conference. Reporters responded with a blank stare at that.

After his speech, which did devote a significant portion to the issue of climate, reporters asked me if I had seen his speech before delivery. They believed I must have seen it in order to predict the speech so accurately. Had they been paying any attention to France’s role as host country, it would have been as obvious to them as it was to me. But, as the only opposition MP to have attended the climate negotiations over the last few years, I am getting used to Canada being unaware. While the NDP and Liberal MPs do not attend, neither do Canadian reporters. As a gathering consensus builds internationally, Canada, embarrassingly, appears to be a back-water of ignorance.

With an election October 19 and the most critical climate negotiations ever beginning within six weeks, everyone – Canadian political parties, the media and the citizenry – better get up to speed rapidly.

The goal of the process is to have a treaty by 2015, coming into effect by 2020 to avoid allowing global average temperature to cross a red line. That red line is a degree of warming of 2 degrees C global average temperatures above levels prior to the Industrial Revolution. No one knowledgeable about climate science thinks 2 degrees C is a safe concentration. The world will experience increasingly dangerous severe weather events at 2 degrees. And no one familiar with Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission rates thinks the goal will be easy.

What everyone can agree upon is that it is essential if we are to avoid a level of warming that itself triggers increasing self-accelerating warming referred to as “run away” climate change.

While Canada has been at the table in the annual meetings of the UNFCCC, under Stephen Harper’s instructions, we make no progress. In fact, Canada has undermined negotiations in critical ways since 2006.

Not only has the federal government ignored its obligations, undertaken by Stephen Harper personally at COP15 in Copenhagen, Canada has sabotaged larger global progress. It was Canada that first started fiddling with the base year. The entire climate framework in 2006, at the point the Conservatives formed a minority government, was predicated on all nations using the same base year against which reductions were pledged. All countries on earth used 1990 as the base year. But at the first set of meetings following Stephen Harper becoming prime minister, Canada abandoned Kyoto and announced we would reduce by 20% below 2006 levels by 2020. We later weakened the shell game opened the door for other countries, notably the US, to play the same game. We have blocked progress at every meeting.

Harper’s administration made us the worst country in the room, but now, with Abbot as Australian PM, we have competition. Tragically, there is no competition for best country in the room. The process is lacking any leadership. There is a big mushy middle. The EU, which used to lead, is increasingly compromised by its own coal-burning members and economic woes. The US talks a good game, but in negotiations, it operates more as a brake than an accelerator.

With an election six weeks before COP21, the Green goal is to have enough Green MPs to be able to work constructively with any other parties in a minority parliament to put Canada back in the leadership role we once had. It will be a short runway, but Green MPs will hit the ground running.

Originally published in Embassy.

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The Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal had chaired the Lima COP attempting innovative approaches. In a dramatic departure from UN culture, he actually chaired expecting negotiators to show up on time and conclude their work to deadline. The “official” adjournment had been scheduled for Friday afternoon, December 12. Pulgar-Vidal tried to maintain on-going consultations in various backrooms. He adjourned sessions at reasonable hours to allow delegates to be well-rested. But the sub-group negotiating the key text (the so-called ADP group standing for “Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform”) held protracted sessions which amounted to collecting comments more than shifting positions. Pulgar-Vidal tried to find the right balance through his consultations and a re-write. When his text was presented Friday it was met with massive unhappiness from developing countries. For the next 36 hours the COP teetered on the brink of falling apart.

The draft decision failed to reinforce fundamental principles of UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) within which the COPs take place. The text omitted key issues of vital concern to developing countries, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable. They insisted that any text make it clear that the poor and the rich cannot be treated exactly the same way. Even issues like reporting requirements place an unfair burden on smaller countries with weak capacity if those countries are not offered some assistance.

On the other hand, the promises from industrialized countries were watered down. In the last COP in Warsaw nations agreed that pledges would be tabled well ahead of the deadline negotiation in Paris, COP21. No one wanted a repetition of Copenhagen with last minute, non-binding political targets.

Copenhagen was a train wreck of an event. It sowed deep seeds of distrust as President Barack Obama took a handful of big industrialized countries, plus China, into a hotel room – outside the integrity and transparency of the UN process – and cooked up the bogus “Copenhagen Accord.” It was accompanied with a blatant attempt to bribe the developing world into not protesting rising seas and droughts by providing a new Green Climate Fund, to ramp up to $100 billion/year by 2020. Long after world leaders had jetted home, the Copenhagen targets were analyzed and shown to have no chance, even if fully implemented, of shooting past the agreement’s goal of avoiding 2 degrees C global average temperature increase.

The Warsaw commitment at COP19 to table pledges (in UN-language “intended nationally determined contributions” or INDCs) within the first quarter of 2015 emerged from Lima as:
Reiterates its invitation to all Parties to communicate their intended nationally determined contributions well in advance of the twenty-first session of the Conference of the Parties (by the first quarter of 2015 by those parties ready to do so)….

Clearly the bolded wording above creates wiggle room for foot-draggers like Canada to delay. With Canada having no hope of coming near its Copenhagen pledge of reducing 17% below 2005 levels by 2020, the tabling of what we will do by 2025 and 2030 is an open question. The success of the Paris treaty depends on having far more ambitious pledges and that those cuts be achieved.

The tensions created by Copenhagen are still with us. At COP20, industrialized countries wanted the developing world to be happy with texts that leave out such annoying promises, while giving the developed world a weak set of self-selected targets of dubious enforceability. The Lima negotiation’s overtime hours only slightly improved a weak decision. References to assistance to developing countries and a call for more action for industrialized countries were mere sops to the chorus of complaints.

Before next year’s COP in Paris, Canada’s elections will likely deliver a new Prime Minister with a Parliament with a greener hue. It is my hope and, in fact, my commitment that the new Parliament, post-2015 election, place Canada in the lead. We can be the country that saves the Paris talks. We know how to do this. Canadian negotiators, given proper instructions to negotiate the clear, aggressive and equitable climate treaty the world needs, can do it! Between now and December 2015, we have to hold all parties and politicians to account and insist that climate be a key issue in the upcoming election.

Originally published in Island Tides.

The post Climate negotiations: a long road from Lima to Paris appeared first on Elizabeth May.

I learned climate science from Environment Canada scientists back in the 1980s when I worked for the federal Minister of Environment. No one thought there was controversy about the basic science as we organized the first major international conference on the threat in Toronto in June 1988. The myth of doubt had not yet been invented, nor heavily financed to delay action.

Procrastination, corporate lobbying and lack of political will has led to a tragic loss of more than two decades when actions would have been easier, greenhouse gases could have been reduced before hitting the current 400 parts per million (ppm), before condemning glaciers and sea ice and coral reefs and other ecosystems to dangerous levels of damage. Over the previous one million years, carbon dioxide concentrations never exceeded 280 ppm. Humanity has already changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, just as carbon dioxide mixing with ocean water is changing the acidity of our oceans.

The process of negotiating a treaty to move the world to a low-carbon future has been on-going since 1992. The third Conference of the Parties (COP3) took place in Kyoto, giving the protocol its name. Kyoto in its second phase still exists, but Canada dealt it several mortal blows.

The next big negotiation deadline was 2009 at COP15 in Copenhagen. That COP was a train wreck of an event. It sowed deep seeds of distrust as President Barack Obama took a handful of big industrialized countries, plus China, into a hotel room – outside the integrity and transparency of the UN process – and cooked up the bogus “Copenhagen Accord.” The targets were not legally binding but “politically binding.” It was accompanied with a blatant attempt to bribe the developing world into not protesting rising seas and droughts by providing a new Green Climate Fund, with promises to ramp up to $100 billion/year by 2020.

Prime Minister Harper personally attended Copenhagen, although he was not present as Obama crafted the back-room deal. Harper agreed to adopt the same target as the United States – 17% below 2005 levels by 2020. This amounted to the second weakening of Canada’s pledge since Harper became prime minister.

While Obama has delivered the US pledge, sadly, Canada has totally missed the target. Using Environment Canada’s own figures, Canada is set to miss its Copenhagen target of 126MT reductions by 116MT. With only five years left before Harper’s pledge falls due, his administration has failed to establish any plan to meet it. It will be challenging for any government to meet that target now.

Meanwhile, the world’s scientific body reviewing climate action, the IPCC, found that even if all Copenhagen targets were met, the world would shoot past 2 degrees risking far more catastrophic impacts.

Much more dramatic action is required. In fact, the IPCC is now calling for the world to cease using fossil fuels for energy entirely by the end of this century. The ramping up of renewable and green sources of energy is urgent.

The global negotiations continue. The deadline for the acceptance of the treaty that failed in Copenhagen will be next year at COP21 in Paris. COP20 last December in Lima was supposed to create an ambitious agenda propelling the last phase of negotiations forward. The Peoples Climate March and UN Climate Leaders Summit last September were all about injecting momentum into Lima. Still, COP20 fell far short of what is needed.

The tensions created by Copenhagen are still with us. At COP20, industrialized countries wanted the developing world to accept texts leaving out the litany of broken promises from industrialized countries, while giving the rich a weak set of self-selected targets of dubious enforceability. The Lima negotiation’s overtime hours only slightly improved a weak decision. References to assistance to developing countries and a call for more action for industrialized countries were mere sops to the chorus of complaints.

Before next year’s COP in Paris, Canada’s elections will likely deliver a new Prime Minister with a Parliament with a greener hue. It is my hope that the new Parliament, post-2015 election, will place Canada in the lead. We can be the country that saves the Paris talks. We know how to do this. Canadian negotiators, given proper instructions to negotiate the clear, aggressive and equitable climate treaty the world needs, can do it.

Between now and December 2015, we have to focus on the parallel challenges – get our own house in order by implementing meaningful climate action domestically while being prepared to play the role of global leader we once delivered for the world. Greens will ensure that climate is a key issue in the upcoming election.

Originally published in the HillTimes.

The post 2015: The Year of Climate Challenges appeared first on Elizabeth May.

She pointed out that if she had said that to me back then, it would have been pretty remarkable. She was three years old in 1986.

It is one of the moments that horrifyingly brings home to me that I have been working to arrest the threat of climate change a very long time – and not succeeding.

In June 1988, I worked within Environment Canada to organize the first international scientific climate conference in Toronto. It made an impact – that same year, the United Nations created a scientific organization to keep politicians informed of the growing threat, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The world appeared to be off to a pretty good start back in 1992 when the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was signed by every nation on the planet at the Earth Summit.

Procrastination, corporate lobbying and lack of political will have led to a tragic loss of more than two decades when actions would have been easier, greenhouse gases could have been reduced before hitting the current 400 parts per million, before condemning glaciers and sea ice and coral reefs and other ecosystems to dangerous levels of damage.

Over the previous one million years, carbon dioxide concentrations have never exceeded 280 ppm. We have already changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, just as carbon dioxide mixing with ocean water is changing the acidity of our oceans.

The process of negotiating a treaty to move the world to a lowcarbon future has been going on since 1992. The third Conference of the Parties (COP3) took place in Kyoto, giving the protocol its name. Kyoto, in its second phase, still exists, but Canada dealt it several mortal blows.

The next big negotiation deadline was 2009 at the Conference of Parties (COP15) in Copenhagen. It was a train wreck of an event. It sowed deep seeds of distrust as U.S. President Barack Obama took a handful of big industrialized countries, plus China, into a hotel room – outside the integrity and transparency of the UN process – and cooked up the bogus “Copenhagen Accord.” The targets were not legally binding but “politically binding.”

It was accompanied by a blatant attempt to bribe the developing world into not protesting rising seas and droughts by providing a new Green Climate Fund, to ramp up to $100 billion a year by 2020. It was primarily designed to give Obama political cover in Washington to pass the Waxman-Markey climate bill. But in the end, the White House pulled its support for Waxman-Markey.

By then, the bill was so riddled with compromise, no one could really mourn its loss. Plus, trying to give that hopeless bill cover sabotaged global negotiations.

So here we are five years later in Lima at COP20. The deadline for the acceptance of the treaty that failed in Copenhagen will be next year at COP21 in Paris. The tensions created by Copenhagen are still with us. As is the distrust.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s pledge to cut emissions has been ignored by his administration and we have no hope of reaching it based on current plans.

Last year at COP19 in Warsaw, the failure to meet promised Green Climate Fund commitments took over the COP, with the popular button of the conference being “WTF?” – “Where’s the financing?” At COP20, industrialized countries wanted the developing world to be happy with text that leaves out such annoying promises, while giving the developed world a weak set of self-selected targets of dubious enforceability. The Lima negotiations went into overtime hours, adjourning more than 36 hours late. The deadlock was predictable and the compromise only slightly improves a weak Lima decision.

For years, I have been the only opposition MP at COP. Before next year’s COP in Paris, Canada’s elections will likely deliver a new prime minister with a Parliament with a greener hue – more Green MPs committed to working cooperatively. It is imperative that at least one opposition MP knows the negotiated trail that got us to this point.

Despite the tortuous path and dashed hopes of other COPs, we have no alternative. There is no other forum to navigate a course to global action for a carbon neutral world. We need to see our way through the thicket to reach the clear, aggressive and equitable climate treaty the world needs.

Elizabeth May is the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands and leader of the Green Party of Canada. Originally published in the Victoria Times Columnist.

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“On balance, I think that the Lima decision is better than nothing,” said Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada and Member of Parliament for Saanich – Gulf Islands. She was the sole Opposition Member of Parliament in attendance at the COP20 negotiation. “The hurdles to achieving a successful treaty in Paris are daunting. The Lima agreement avoids immediate failure, but sets an underwhelming pace. We needed a launch of ‘ready, set, go!’ But we got ‘ready, set, limp.’”

The Lima document lays out how each nation will submit its own plans for combatting climate change over the next 12 months. Furthermore, it provides recommendations as to how the COP21 Paris negotiations should proceed. Although the document was watered down as industrialized and developing nations disagreed over the main priorities for COP21, it marks a starting point.

“COP21 will succeed or fail based on how effectively the differing goals of industrialized nations and developing countries can be reconciled,” concluded Ms. May. “That is why it is so important for climate change to be a key issue in the upcoming election in 2015.  I believe Canadians understand that we need to elect a new government to ensure that Canada returns to our pre-Harper role as a positive force in climate negotiations.”

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The new text bent in a few critical places to reflect the over-whelming concern from developing countries that the Lima decision not be allowed to weaken the 1992 framework convention. It improved language about taking action before 2020 and meeting all previous pledges to reduce emissions.

That said, it is still a weak text.

After an hour to read and consider it, the President, Peruvian Environment Minister Manuel Pulgar-Vidal called the plenary back to order and then (within seconds) announced he saw consensus in the room and the text was adopted. Wild applause ensued, while climate activists reacted with shock and dismay.

However, on balance, I think the Lima decision is better than nothing. The threat from the US that it might pull out of the talks and find some other forum to negotiate climate action was chilling though subtle. Maybe it was all the more chilling for its subtlety. We need to keep the multilateral process moving forward. This text does that, but without the momentum we need.

Between now and next year at COP21 we need to keep a focus on the climate. We need to demand that Canada meet the weak pledge Harper made in Copenhagen. We must insist that Canada meet the agreed upon goal for all developed nations tabling with the UN our pledges for the new treaty to be agreed upon in Paris — and to do so in the first quarter of 2015. We cannot let focus on climate disappear again only to be covered once an over-hyped Paris conference is about to begin.

And above all else, we need to make sure that climate change is an election issue. For those of you who have tracked these talks, seeking out my blog in the absence of mainstream news coverage in Canada, thank you. Please share your thoughts right now with your local newspapers. Write letters to the editor about how this very significant conference should have had more thorough coverage. Write about what you expect from your government at COP21. Whatever strikes you as critical, please find ways to amplify your voice and share your concerns.

Together we can make the next treaty the one that drives the world’s economy and all governments to begin the transition in earnest to get off fossil fuels. This is a moment that allows us to think like a human family. We need to make the most of 2015.

Best wishes for the holidays and thanks for staying with me in Lima.

The post Down to the wire – Was the Lima decision better than nothing? appeared first on Elizabeth May.

To my surprise Thursday night, the president adjourned, having instructed the two-chairs to work with him and develop a new text by 9 pm. He also asked the lead negotiators from Norway and Singapore to play a role in helping find consensus. He then sent all the rest of us back to our hotels with a plenary to begin at 9 am Friday.

The next morning a hundred or so NGOs with observer badges queued to get in the smaller informal room (the one with the deafening fan). We never did get in. Even some of the national delegations could not get in. The debate raged inside for nearly an hour. Only then did we discover that the debate had been about getting to a larger room! The delegations didn’t want so many NGOs excluded (at least those from the developing countries didn’t). The UN security guard came out and said “Everyone to plenary room Cusco. Don’t run.” At which point a fair number of weary delegates started running.

Once back in the large plenary room, the conversation continued along the informal lines of a working group. The new text was not well received. It had a series of options (1-3) on all key sections, but it was heavily balanced toward the industrialized world’s agenda.

As developing countries took the floor, one after another expressed, in very diplomatic terms, their disappointment with the lack of balance. A key word here is “differentiation.” (See my blog on Brazil’s proposal from Wednesday). There was no differentiation in this text. I asked one Canadian negotiator about it and the reply was “of course there is differentiation. It is self-differentiation.” Right, a wealthy country like Canada can say “poor me! Look at my difficult circumstances. I am so invested in oil sands!” While for the poor nations of the world, the differentiation is one of reality. Low lying island states face extinction as nations, while other poor nations with millions living near sea level are buffeted by oceans rise and storm surges become more dangerous, tropical storms gain greater intensity and scarce infrastructure is wiped out.

There was no mention of the issue of Loss and Damage, few references to adaptation and financing, technology transfer and capacity building and nothing to give comfort to poor countries that they would not have the same requirements to file their “intended nationally determined contributions” (INDCs) as industrialized – but with no resources to do so. The weak reference to the place of the ADP work within the UNFCCC was a special point of alarm for developing countries. The preamble merely said “Guided by the Convention.” India was forceful in saying that sentence “shattered the faith” of developing countries that the industrialized world is not trying to weaken the role of the convention.

After a few hours of gathering comments, the co-chairs announced that they had been asked by the president to work with him and come up with a new text. We were asked to come back after lunch for a stock-taking session with the president, to see how well they had moved to compromise.

That stock-taking was delayed till 3 and then 4, then till 5, than 9 pm, to 11:30. As one of my environmental group friends said, “it is only at a COP were you can feel stressed and bored at the same time.”

Finally we convened at 1 am. Or at least the doors opened at 1 AM. It was around 2 AM before all country groups had completed their internal conversations and the President of the COP, Peru’s Environment Minister Manuel Pugar-Vidal convened the group. He urged us to be flexible and then gave the floor to the ADP co-chair. A text was handed out, slimmed down, as he explained it was based on comments from all parties. He promised all countries would be unhappy, but hoped all countries would be equally unhappy.

For the next hour and a half the developing countries primarily asked that they not be given a “take it or leave it” decision text. Fully aware that the meeting was already supposed to be over, some urged acceptance despite finding the document weak. But, not unreasonably, country after country asked to have time to read the decision text carefully, confer with capitals (as many ministers had already had to leave) and have a chance to think through new language.

By 3:30 am, the ADP co-chair agreed to allow time to read the decision and resume our talks at 10 am. It is a fair distance from this military base outside of town back to hotels in town. It basically allowed negotiators the choice of reading the text or sleeping in the available 3.5 hours they had in hotels.

At 10 am the conversation on the substance of the new text began. It was clear very quickly that there could be no consensus on the draft, despite some clear improvements. It was sufficiently weak for Australia to like it. Canada did not take the floor. But low lying island sates, particularly Tuvalu stood against a text that in the words of Tuvalu’s lead negotiator Ian Fry would abandon the poorest of the poor. “We implore everyone in this room that this not be the COP that decided to ignore the world’s poorest.”

The African nations stood against it, as well as the Like-Minded Group (for whom the very experienced lead negotiator is from Malaysia), a sub set of the G77 and China. The Arab nations agreed.

Brazil made a very reasonable, rules-based and principled intervention. Pointing out that the UNFCCC must govern this process and that “we are here to strengthen the climate regime globally, not weaken it.”

The room was not entirely against the text. The Marshall Islands, acknowledging that “my country’s existence is on the line” urged compromise to accept this text and “fight tooth and nail” to improve it before Paris.

Russia liked the text, ditto Australia, New Zealand and Japan. The US liked it and took on a rather threatening tone (at least I thought so) as Todd Stern of State Department said that not only the climate system was at risk. So was the legitimacy of the UNFCCC as a vehicle to respond to the climate crisis — if the COP did not accept the draft text.

China finally named the reality. “We are dead-locked.”

The co-chairs admitted that it was true and said they would adjourn and convey the ADP text for the President to consult and find compromises. Then Pulgar-Vidal announced that starting at 2:30 he would meet with every group of nations, regional or interest-based negotiating groups, in meetings of ten minutes each. And that that should take three hours more. At which point, he and the co-chairs would draft.

Negotiation on the pattern of speed-dating. We are still awaiting the results of that process. A new text is expected and we are to reconvene at 9 pm.

I will write more when I know if we leave Lima empty handed, with a weak text or with one that actually establishes a good path to COP21. My bet right now is on the middle option, a weak text but slightly better than the previous draft. Stay tuned.

PS: The new posted time to resume the ADP discussion in closing session is 11 pm.

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Today was my first time venturing out of the COP20 venue and into the streets of Lima.  The Peoples’ Climate March of September’s mass global mobilization continued through the streets of Lima. The crowd estimates were 10,000- 15,000 people.  It was a positive and exuberant gathering that stretched for kilometres through the heart of Lima.

Meanwhile, back at COP, the ADP negotiations have now layered on multiple sentences and clauses in alternatives and options.  It is hard to imagine how this COP can conclude with a consensus draft before we adjourn on Friday.  I predict an all-nighter for tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Brazil has thrown some interesting ideas into the mix.  The architecture of a deal is still under debate.  What should the industrialized countries with responsibility for the majority of emissions in our atmosphere be responsible to reduce? (One must remember that “historic emissions” are not history.  With a lifetime in the atmosphere of 100 years, the carbon pollution from the industrialized world is still a much larger share of the atmospheric concentrations of carbon than those from the recently equally polluting power of China.)   What should the larger rapidly industrializing countries (such as China and Brazil) take on?

The Kyoto Protocol, based on the successful Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer, was based on “common but differentiated” responsibilities and targets.  Both protocols set out that industrialized nations should move first on emissions.  Many industrialized countries hit or exceeded Kyoto targets.  But the USA’s refusal to ratify and Canada’s withdrawal from Kyoto have left a residue of distrust between North and South.

Brazil’s new proposal opens a conversation around these tough and intractable issues.  “Concentric differentiation” calls for industrialized countries to move forward together with economy-wide real reductions, while developing countries (other than the very poorest, called Least Developed Countries, or LDCs) would move to economy wide targets based on relative units of reduction (or intensity targets).

It can be depicted as a series of three circles: the inner core is the industrialized countries with economy-wide targets with absolute reductions; the next circle is the larger developing countries – often called the “emerging economies,” with intensity, per capita or relative reduction targets; and the outer circle, by LDCs with non-economy-wide targets. Over time, all countries on the outer edges move to the centre.

This may not be exactly the right formula, but it is creating buzz.

Also creating buzz for the first time in a long time at COPs is Canada.  Stephen Harper’s “crazy, crazy” blast from yesterday’s QP made it to the civil society daily news sheet today.  I had delegates from all around the world asking me if it was true. Had our Prime Minister actually said in Parliament, this week of all weeks, that it would be “crazy” to reduce GHG from the oil and gas sector?  Yes, I had to say, that’s what he said.

Tomorrow, we are likely to see the pressure ramp up.  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to join his government’s delegation.  The Peruvian presidency will be hoping to gavel some agenda items as completed.  A safe bet is that we will go into over-time hours.

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