European Union insistence on a right to challenge nations about their plans for fighting climate change, in the run-up to a United Nations summit in 2015, has opened a rift at U.N. climate talks in Lima.
Washington said a review of national pledges for curbing rising greenhouse gas emissions before the U.N. summit in Paris next December was “not fundamental” and Beijing signaled hostility to the idea of letting other nations challenge its policies.
Monday’s dispute has big implications for the deal in Paris, which could either be a patchwork of purely national offers to fight climate change beyond 2020, or one where countries and outside observers including green groups are able to challenge and influence the scope of national pledges.
“There should be a process of assessment. That’s absolutely imperative,” Miguel Arias Canete, European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy, told a news conference.
Under a U.N. timetable, about 190 governments have an informal deadline to submit national plans for limiting rising greenhouse gas emissions before March 31, 2015, to give time for a review before the Paris summit.
The European Union, which announced in October that it plans to cuts its emissions by 40 percent by 2030, said the informal deadline made no sense unless it allowed nations to review each others’ plans for averting more heat waves, floods and rising sea levels.
Last month, the United States said it plans to cut its emissions by 26 to 28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025, equivalent to 14 to 16 percent below 1990 levels, and China has promised to cap its soaring emissions by around 2030.
China last Friday demanded that all references to any formal review of emission targets should be deleted. But a new draft text for a U.N. decision in Lima, published on Monday, retained the idea of a formal review, requiring for example that countries answer within four weeks questions about their climate pledges.
The United States took a middle path, saying the important issue was to encourage ambition. “The U.S. is perfectly happy to have a consultative process,” said Todd Stern, special climate envoy and head of the U.S. delegation.