Climate-saving deal well on track

Sleep-starved envoys tasked with staving off catastrophic climate change are on track to seal a historic accord, the French hosts of UN talks said yesterday although the biggest pitfalls were yet to be cleared.

The 195-nation conference in Paris had been scheduled to wrap up yesterday, but was extended another day after ministers failed to bridge deep divides during a second consecutive all-night round of negotiations.

Still, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, who is presiding over the talks, voiced confidence the event would culminate with a much-awaited pact.

"We are almost at the end of the road and I am optimistic," said Fabius, whose hopes were echoed by many negotiators and observers despite potential deal-breakers still up in the air.

Fabius said he would submit the deal at 9:00 (0800 GMT) and was "sure" it would be approved. "It will be a big step forward for humanity as a whole," he said.

World leaders have billed the Paris talks as the last chance to avert disastrous climate change: increasingly severe drought, floods and storms, as well as rising seas that would engulf islands and populated coasts.

Highlighting the urgency of the moment, US President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, spoke by phone yesterday about the Paris negotiations, according to China's foreign ministry.

Xi said the world powers "must strengthen coordination with all parties" and "make joint efforts to ensure the Paris climate summit reaches an accord", according to a statement on the ministry's website.

The planned accord would seek to revolutionise the world's energy system by cutting back or potentially eliminating the burning of coal, oil and gas, whose carbon dioxide is the big warming culprit.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called yesterday on envoys from around the world to take a "final decision for humanity" as they battled to seal the climate-saving pact.

"This negotiation is most complicated, most difficult, but most important for humanity. We have just very limited hours remaining," Ban told reporters as ministers grabbled with stubborn differences over pivotal issues.

BATTLE LINES

UN efforts from the 1990s have been hamstrung by rows between developed and developing nations over sharing the emissions-curbing burden, aiding climate-vulnerable poor countries and funding the shift to cleaner renewables.

Developing nations have insisted established economic powerhouses must shoulder the lion's share of responsibility as they have emitted most of the greenhouse gases since the Industrial Revolution.

But the United States and other rich nations say emerging giants must also do more.

The financing issues remained the biggest potential deal-breakers in Paris, highlighted in a draft text presented by Fabius on Thursday that was debated through the night.

Rich countries promised six years ago in Copenhagen to muster $100 billion (92 billion euros) a year from 2020 to help developing nations make the energy shift and cope with the impact of global warming.

But how the pledged funds will be raised remains unclear -- and developing countries are determined to secure a commitment for increasing amounts of money after 2020.

CALL FOR COMPROMISE

As he released the draft of the pact, Fabius said a deal was "extremely close" but appealed for compromise from all sides.

Most nations submitted to the UN before the conference their voluntary plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions from 2020, a process that was widely hailed as an important platform for success.

But scientists say that, even if the cuts were fulfilled, they would still put Earth on track for warming of at least 2.7C.

The latest draft offers a compromise that states the purpose of the agreement is to hold temperatures to well below 2C, but aim for 1.5C.

"With this, I would be able to go home and tell my people that our chance for survival is not lost," said Tony de Brum, foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, one of the archipelagic nations that could be wiped out by rising sea levels.