One more step ahead
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Sunday’s Lima deal on climate change became possible after days of tussle between the developed and developing countries. The developed countries wanted that all should have the same share of burden in addressing the climate change issue. However, the developing countries protested to this approach and rejected the draft. A new draft has to be made and later there arrived a compromise. The deal was made which will be placed in Paris next year when around 200 countries are likely to sign a historic international climate treaty.
The crux of Sunday’s Lima deal is that the richer countries will help poorer ones on the issue. The exact manner how it should go about is not known. ‘The Lima draft announced on Sunday determines that developed countries and developing nations will take on differing responsibilities in the fight against global warming “in light of different national circumstances.’ The report said “the details of those responsibilities are to be determined later.” It also “calls on richer countries to help poorer ones finance their goals -- especially countries hurt most by the adverse effects of climate change that are working to mitigate that damage.” The report added that “initial disagreement between nations over the distribution of responsibilities and costs had brought negotiations to a deadlock, causing the conference to be extended by two days.”Meanwhile, some noted commentators said the Sunday deal was unexpected. They said “the gavel came down on UN climate talks that had almost collapsed because of wide gaps between the positions held by rich and poor nations.” One activist asked, “So how was the agreement reached? And does it take the world any closer to dealing with climate change?”
Whatever may be the case it was a huge achievement of those 190 countries giving their best efforts to combat climate change. The Lima deal is in fact a good warm-up for the 2015 Paris meeting on climate change. One agency has said, “The Lima deal can be seen as a dry run for a much greater Paris compact and ostensibly it was about how countries should format their intended national pledges on climate change.”
