Figueres warns world is “running out of time” to agree to climate treaty

By Ed King

A draft text for a global climate change treaty set to be agreed in 2015 will be presented to governments as early as November this year, according to the UN official in charge of negotiations.

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) expects work on what is guaranteed to be a controversial deal to start in little over 12 weeks time, giving diplomats seven months to flesh out proposals before the main climate summit of 2014 opens in Lima on December 1.

“In March we will have a session of the Durban Platform [2015 deal talks] that will begin to look at what is the content of the agreement of 2015 going to be, and will be preparation for the draft agreement that will be out on the table as governments go to Lima, so not as a result of Lima but as they go to Lima,” she told RTCC in an interview.

The pressure is starting to mount for a process that is designed to avert dangerous levels of global warming, but has so far not managed to deliver anything close to the level of greenhouse gas emission cuts needed to do that.

A UN climate science report released last September warned of rising sea levels, melting polar ice caps and increases in extreme weather events if urgent action is not taken within the next decade.

Read more here…