A global climate summit has ended in Poland with an agreement to govern how the 2015 Paris climate accord will be implemented.Almost 200 countries on Saturday reached an agreement on implementing the Paris Climate Accord after two weeks of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations.
The result of the tortured negotiations in the Polish city of Katowice is a 156-page rulebook on how countries will report and monitor their national pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions and update their emissions plans.
What was agreed
The document covers a wide gamut of topics, but some key points of the deal include:
An agreement on how countries should report their greenhouse gas emissions and the efforts they're taking to reduce them.
An assurance of financial support for poor countries to help them cut emissions, adapt to inevitable climate changes and pay for damages that have already happened.
Read more: COP24: Frustration and hope in the fight against climate change
Sticking points
Points where nations struggled to find common ground include:
How to create a functioning market in carbon credits, with countries such as Brazil wanting keep carbon credits amassed under an old system. Agreement on the issue postponed for a future meeting.
Acceptance of the conclusions of the blockbuster IPCC report. Countries such as Saudi Arabia managed to water down wording to merely welcome the "timely completion" of the IPCC report, not its conclusions.
There was also a general lack of ambition in the final text to reduce emissions, with countries agreeing to consider the issue at a UN summit in New York next September.
Read more: Divisions persist as climate talks drag to a close
"It is not easy to find agreement on a deal so specific and technical. Through this package you have made a thousand little steps forward together. You can feel proud," Polish president of the talks Michal Kurtyka told delegates.
"We will all have to give in order to gain," he said. "We will all have to be courageous to look into the future and make yet another step for the sake of humanity."
aw/bw (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)
More to follow…
