About 190 nations agreed yesterday on the building blocks of a deal to combat climate change next year, amid statements that far tougher action would be needed to cut rising world greenhouse gas emissions.
After marathon talks lasting two days into overtime, the four-page document asks countries to submit national plans to tackle global warming early next year to form the basis of a new global agreement due at a summit in Paris in 12 months’ time.
The text appeased developing countries, including China and India, concerned that previous drafts outlined actions that would be more difficult for emerging economies compared with richer nations.
Photo: AFP
The talks were threatened with collapse on Saturday after China clashed with the US and led emerging nations to reject a compromise outline of an agreement.
With talks already in overtime because of a deadlock after the 12-day meeting that was due to finish on Friday, China said a draft text put too much burden on poor nations to limit greenhouse-gas emissions compared with rich nations, whose citizens have burned the most fossil fuels.
“We’ve got what we wanted,” Indian Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar said, adding that the text preserves the notion that the rich have to lead the way in making cuts in emissions, breaking the deadlock at the negotiations.
He said the deal at the end of the two-week talks also makes it clear that rich nations would have to provide financial support to developing countries.
Even so, the UN Climate Change Secretariat has said that the combined pledges by all nations in Paris would be too weak to achieve a goal of limiting warming to an agreed target of 2?C above pre-industrial times.
“This is a good document to pave the way to Paris,” EU Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete told reporters.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique