Key points of the Doha deal

Key points of the climate package deal, dubbed the Doha Climate Gateway, include an extension of the Kyoto Protocol.

Doha climate protest
Negotiatiors reached an agreement on Saturday to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2015 [Reuters]

After two weeks of talks, delegates at the UN climate talks in Qatar have reached an agreement.

These are the key points of the climate package deal, dubbed the Doha Climate Gateway:

Kyoto Protocol

The Kyoto pact was given a new lease on life in the form of a “second commitment period” to follow the first leg that ends on December 31.

It will run from January 1, 2013 to the end of 2020, binding the 27-member European Union and 10 other industrialised nations, including Australia and Switzerland, to emission cuts.

Funding for developing nations

The text of the Doha deal urges developed countries to announce pledges “when their financial circumstances permit”.

The issue had threatened to derail the annual UN huddle, with developed nations under pressure to put money on the table from next year, growing to at least $100bn per year by 2020.

The rich world had provided a total $30bn in funding for poor countries’ climate plans in 2010-2012, but the European Union, US and Japan have pledged nothing for the period 2013-2019.

Developing countries say they need at least another $60bn between now and 2015, starting with $20bn from next year, to deal with a climate change-induced rise in droughts, floods, rising sea levels and storms.

The Doha text urges developed nations to submit by next year’s UN climate huddle in Warsaw “information on their strategies and approaches for mobilising scaled-up climate finance to $100bn per year by 2020.”

Loss and damage

In response to a call from poor countries and those most vulnerable to climate change-related damage, delegates from the developed world gave the go-ahead after long fights behind closed doors for the creation in Warsaw of “institutional arrangements” for loss and damage.

New global deal

The parties reiterated their intention to draft a new, global pact by 2015 to replace the Kyoto Protocol from 2020. 

The new deal will bind all the world’s nations but the conference said a draft negotiating text must be finalised no later than May 2015. 

The gathering welcomed plans by UN chief Ban Ki-moon to host world leaders during the course of 2014 to give  momentum to the quest for a new deal by 2015.

Pre-2020 Emissions

The conference said ways must be found to close the growing gap between countries’ emissions targets and the actual 
curbs required to keep Earth on track to manageable warming of no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) on average from pre-industrial levels.

Source: AFP