Frustration at UN climate talks despite EU deal

A European deal on curbing carbon emissions yielded a rare concrete input Friday to UN climate talks, but did little to ease frustration among negotiators demanding progress on a global pact in Bonn.
Sealed at a hard-fought summit in Brussels, the European Union agreement was praised by UN climate chief Christiana Figueres as providing "valuable momentum" towards a global pact to be inked in Paris just over 13 months from now.
But developing countries and observers said the contribution, though positive, was not ambitious enough to revive a process hamstrung over who should do what to roll back global warming.
Claudia Salermo, representing Venezuela as a member of the "Like-Minded Developing Countries" (LMDC) bloc at the latest negotiating round in Bonn, said the EU goals were "too little and too late".
"It is a gesture, but it is not sufficient," added Seyni Nafo, a spokesman for African countries.
The 28-nation EU agreed to cut emissions by at least 40 percent by 2030 over 1990 levels, already having achieved a 20-percent cut from 1990 to 2020.
It also adopted 27 percent targets for renewable energy supply and efficiency gains.
The deal placed the EU on target to meet a loose deadline for countries to submit climate mitigation goals in the first quarter of next year.
These are linked to the new 2015 deal, due to take effect in 2020, which will seek to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-Industrial Revolution levels.
Scientists warn that on current trends, Earth could experience twice that rise -- a recipe for potentially catastrophic damage to the climate system.
With this in mind, the LMDC grouping of around 30 nations including major polluters India and China, called Friday for "actual negotiations" to begin.
Five days into the six-day Bonn talks, they said in a statement time was being wasted on "conceptual, brain-storming-type discussions" rather than grappling with the actual contents of the envisaged agreement.
- 'Panic' setting in -
Nations should "directly negotiate with other parties and start drafting the outcome texts", said the group.
It called on the talks to "narrow differences, find convergence and arrive at a collectively constructed consensus" in Lima in December, where a draft of the 2015 pact is meant to be sketched.
While parties have moved closer on some issues, some of the thorniest remain unresolved.
Topping the list: developing nations demand detailed plans for financing from rich countries of their climate mitigation and adaptation plans.
"In truth, the level of trust is low and financing is still the main issue," said Nafo.
Still unresolved, too, is the legal form of the 2015 agreement, whether there will be a differentiation between rich and poor nation responsibilities, and how to assess whether national carbon curbing pledges are enough, combined, to reach the 2 C goal.
"This leaves a lot to be decided," said Alden Meyer of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists think-tank.
"People are starting to panic a little."
The European group said while it understood the "anxiety" of poor nations, a discussion document currently on the table was too broad to allow for detailed negotiations.
Europe accounts for about 10 percent of global emissions of carbon dioxide, much less than China and the United States, but has traditionally played a vanguard role in the climate talks, which is why its latest position is so closely scrutinised.
EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard said Friday that "we have sent a strong signal to other big economies and all other countries: we have done our homework, now we urge you to follow Europe's example."
But Maeve McLynn, a climate policy expert at advocacy group Climate Action Network, told AFP the contribution "falls far short of promoting the transformation that we need.
"Despite signalling to other parties, especially other big developed countries, that time is of the essence in the international climate negotiations, the targets on the table are still not adequate."