Climate conference: developed countries push for closing talks under Long-Term Cooperative Action

With just a day left for the informal negotiating session on climate change in Bangkok to conclude, the chair of the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA), Aysar Tayeb of Saudi Arabia, expressed dismay at the progress made so far.

AWG-LCA, which was mandated to cease functioning by the end of the year at Doha, is one of the three tracks under which negotiations are on and has a slew of elements under it. These elements, which were agreed to under the Bali Action Plan five years ago, include finance and technology transfer, which have proved to be contentious since the time of their conception. For developed country parties that are reluctant to show any promise of extending financial or other means of support to developing country parties, the time constraints that such a significant task poses has served as the perfect excuse to “jump ship” (abandon LCA), a trend that has been gathering momentum here at Bangkok. They have been urging to either shut the door on certain elements or shift them to either the ADP negotiation track (Ad hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action) under which the post-2020 agreement will be finalised or to the subsidiary groups that primarily deliver on technical issues.