France will produce its own text for a global climate change agreement if countries taking part in UN negotiations fail to cut the current 90-page document down to size, reports The Guardian.
The host of this year’s UN summit, where an emissions cutting pact between nearly 200 countries is set to be finalised, wants a shorter document by the end of the summer.
“We have to get a simpler text by June or the latest by the end of August to work with it,” France’s top climate diplomat Laurence Tubiana told RTCC, speaking at the Carbon Expo event in Barcelona.
“If this does not proceed from the normal process of course that will rely on the presidency of the COP in the summer to produce a new document.
“We don’t want that so we will push and press for everyone to deliver a shorter text by the end of August – really defining what needs to be decided in Paris, what will be decided after and what are the core principles in the agreement.”
Tubiana said France wants the main elements of the deal ready by October to ensure there were “no surprises” that could stymie the process.
The last time the UN attempted to secure a global climate solution ended in farce just under six years ago at a summit in Copenhagen, with a small group of major emitters stitching together a hurried voluntary deal after negotiations over a huge set of proposals stalled.