20111210_RB

Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme

URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9659000/9659085.stm

Date: 10/12/2011

Event: Richard Black describes a "burst of optimism" at Durban climate talk

Attribution: BBC Radio 4

People:

• Richard Black: BBC environment correspondent
• Sarah Montague: Presenter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme

Sarah Montague: They're still talking at the climate change conference in Durban, in the hope of reaching some sort of deal. Our environment correspondent Richard Black is there. And Richard, what hope is there now, that they can come to some sort of agreement?

Richard Black: Oh, there's been a burst of optimism, Sarah, I'd say. Um, yesterday, things were looking pretty dire, to be honest. The South African hosts issued a text, beginning of yesterday morning, which did really nothing to constrain future carbon emissions. The European Union was - was furious, and here it's quite united. A lot of the small island, developing states, and so on, were even more furious, so the South Africans went away and rewrote it, and they've come back with another draft, which is much, much stronger. It talks about, starting in the new year, to - a set of talks towards a new global treaty, having that done by 2015. Um, it also concedes some of the things that the major developing countries have wanted, such as continuing the Kyoto Protocol. So, we'll see. They're due to start talking again in about an hour, in the, sort of, official negotiations, and we'll see if anyone throws a major paddy.

Sarah Montague: But the assumption is, that they are still walking towards - talking about something that everybody could sign up to, where eventually there would be a deal.

Richard Black: That's absolutely correct. That is part of the deal, they're saying that Europe continuing with Kyoto is part of the price of that, and that doesn't mean that in Europe they have to take any more emissions cuts in the near term. It just puts everything on a kind of internationally legally binding footing. There's also agreement, we hear, on the major financing, how on earth you can raise $100 billion per year by 2020, as has been promised, under some fund, and disburse it to the poorer countries. We're not going to agree here how to raise the money, but how to manage it looks possible.

Sarah Montague: And where are the big polluters on this? China and America.

Richard Black: Er, in a corner, I think. There's no doubt the U.S., in particular - it came - the politics in the U.S., of course, President Obama can't be seen to give too much, particularly to China. But equally, if he is forced into, you know, a - scenes like we had at the Bali conference four years ago, where the U.S. was being accused, on its own, of holding up the deal, that's something he can't afford either, because he will then alienate his core supporters still further. So, they are in a corner. China is the biggest player here. We assume that they're broadly happy with the draft text, but we can't be sure.

Sarah Montague: And the eventual - when we're talking about this text, this is a text that would mean you have a deal in place by, what, 2015? And that that would reach that crucial thing of limiting temperature rises to 2 degrees?

Richard Black: There's been a huge mismatch, so far. On the one hand between what governments say they want to achieve, to keep the global temperature rise below 2 Celsius, and what they've pledged. Now this is the first document that explicitly acknowledges that there's a problem, there's a gap, so that in itself is a huge conceptual leap forward. As it's only a draft, you know, and there's an awful lot of negotiating to be done, because if you start now and say, you know, we'll have a deal in place by 2015, well, that's - that's, what, three, four years of negotiating time, and awful, awful lots of very, very important details.

Sarah Montague: Richard Black, thank you very much.