The Paris Project: The Second Half Begins

'Week of Hope' Brings Ministers with Authority to Approve Accord

In recent years, Indonesia has replaced Brazil as the kingpin of deforestation around the world in the name of agriculture. Part and parcel to this, purposely lit clearing fires on such lands in Indonesia have raged wickedly. In fact, when burning early this year, they were producing more CO2 emissions than all of the United States combined. Here, protesters from the island nation outraged over the practice, make their voices heard inside Le Bourget.

The grind is upon us. After a somewhat quieter weekend at Le Bourget conference center here in Paris, the UNʼs Climate Conference came roaring back to life on Monday as Foreign Ministers arrived en masse for the final phase of the two-week conference. This is the home stretch, sports fans. If a deal is going to get done, it is going to happen in the next couple of days, and it is going to be have be agreed upon by the new blue suits in town. They have a power of authority that their negotiating teams do not. It is officially go time.

So where are we, exactly? Well, on Saturday night, the latest incarnation of the draft text, now slimmed down to 29 pages from its pre-conference heft of over 50, was presented to COP21 President and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. More telling, those pesky open brackets in the text, the things that denote areas of specific contention betwixt parties, have been reduced from over 1,000 to 567. Of course, the bracket tally has to hit zero for a deal to be done but, at least in a simple mathematical sense, progress is being made at a rate relatively consistent with the pace of the two-week meeting set to wrap early this coming Friday evening Paris time. As Fabius said on Monday afternoon, “This is the beginning of the week that I like to call ʻThe Week of Hope.’”

One of the few permitted public assemblies during COP21 — Paris is still on semi-lockdown after the November 13 terrorist attacks — this event at the Eiffel Tower on Sunday sent a clear message around the world. Conceived by aerial artist John Quigley, <em>The Independent</em>'s own Ethan Stewart provides the bottom half of the second zero.

The issues at hand in the remaining brackets are, by and large, representative of multinational disagreements over four main issues: differentiation (i.e., the historical United Nations manner of doing business that splits folks into either the developing countries group or the already developed country camp), ambition (Who will pledge what in regard to emissions cuts and when? Will it try and keep temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius or 1.5°C?), means of implementation (How will cuts actually happen, and how will they be monitored/enforced? What will define transparency?), and, lastly, adaptation (How will less fortunate countries and nations on the front lines of climate change be supported by the bigger, more fiscally stable countries in their efforts to combat and deal with climate chaos? In short, who will pay for the $100 billion Global Climate Fund and how often?). Fabius put it simply on Monday, “A resolution is dependent on these issues.”