UN climate conference enters final day with little progress made

The UN climate conference was set to enter its final day on Friday with many issues still unresolved despite two weeks of intensive debate.

Negotiators from 196 countries sat into the night on Thursday in Katowice, Poland in a bid to make progress on drafting a rulebook for implementing and financing the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

Back then it was agreed that global warming should be kept to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-Industrial levels and preferably to less than 1.5 degrees, but countries were to put forward their own plans to cut emissions.

Scientists say the measures agreed so far fall desperately short of what is needed.

At the COP24 talks in Katowice, delegates have clashed over financing, with poorer countries most affected by climate change demanding long-term financial support and recognition of the damage that it causes.

There is also a dispute over whether to issue a firmer commitment to preventing warming from increasing by more than 1.5 degrees.

A report from the Global Carbon Project revealed last week that greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 were projected to rise by at least 2 per cent.

This was the latest of several reports, the most notable of which was the UN IPCC report, which showed that it was unlikely the world would be able to prevent global warming from stopping at the 1.5 degree-mark.

Top climate scientist Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told dpa not enough was being done to prevent climate change.

"The deficit is insane," he said. "Hardly any state is doing enough. We're driving this planet into the ground."