The executive secretary of the UN climate change secretariat expressed zero doubt this week that governments will reach a climate deal at negotiations in Paris in December.
“Governments are actually very well on track,” Christiana Figueres told Reuters. “There is no doubt that this agreement will be forged in Paris.”
Figueres noted that only 37 out of 196 UN member states have submitted their Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), containing their commitments for greenhouse gas reductions beyond 2020. “We expect many more critical ones to come in over the next few weeks and months, and then we expect another large crop of INDCs to be coming in the third quarter,” she said.
Negotiators sealed a draft treaty in February, and they’ll gather again in Bonn next week to begin cutting the 86-page document down to a more workable size. “We will first look through the duplications and how can the ideas and the solutions in the text be crystallized,” Figueres said. “Expect a much more manageable product to emerge at the end of June.” (h/t to InsideClimate News for pointing us to this story)
