Climate talks are gaining momentum

Negotiators and diplomats from around the world began two weeks of UN climate change talks in Bonn, Germany, on Nov 6. Their main task is to explore a "technical and operational" implementation road map for the Paris Agreement.

President Xi Jinping has pledged to stick to China's commitments to the accord and the country's low-carbon development strategy underlined at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last month. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will join the Bonn talks next week.

Chinese negotiators have called the Bonn talks a "threshold phase" in implementing the Paris Agreement, citing increased global efforts to address the climate threat.

Europeans have said they expect that China and the European Union will cooperate to lay a solid foundation for implementation of the Paris Agreement.

"We highly expect that both China and the EU will be taking leadership responsibility in delivering the historic Paris Agreement, especially when they talk in Bonn," Jo Leinen, chairman of the European Parliament's Delegation for Relations with China, told China Daily before the talks started.

The annual UN climate negotiations are key to implementing the accord, which is meant to keep the global temperature increase well below 2 C and as close as possible to 1.5 C this century.

Patricia Espinosa, the UN climate change executive secretary, said on Nov 6 that the goal of the Bonn talks is to take the next essential steps in ensuring that the Paris Agreement's operational system is completed in time and that the ways and the means to implement it are strengthened.

"The talks in Bonn will show to the world the two faces of climate change," she said. First, she said, is the positive, resolute momentum by so many governments, a growing array of cities and states, business, civil society and UN agencies aligning with the Paris Agreement's aims and goals. Second, it is a reality check.

"The thermometer of risk is rising; the pulse of the planet is racing; people are hurting; the window of opportunity is closing and we must go further and faster together to lift ambition and action to the next defining level, " she said.

Lu Xinming, a negotiator from the National Development and Reform Commission, said on Nov 6 that the Bonn meeting comes at a "crucial and watershed phase", both for defining implementation guidelines of the Paris Agreement and also for battling the climate change occurring across the globe.

He said China had made ample preparations for the meeting and had submitted five proposals on implementing the Paris Agreement.

fujing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 11/10/2017 page14)