Climate accord draft leaves big issues unresolved

LE BOURGET, France — With just two days left to reach a deal, negotiators at the world climate talks released a new draft Wednesday that drops the most radical ideas — including an international tribunal to punish polluters — but leaves major issues unresolved, such as who should pay to help the most vulnerable nations cope with global warming.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry challenged diplomats to reach agreement by Friday’s deadline, promising American funding for low-lying island nations and other countries hit hardest by the rising seas and extreme weather that scientists attribute to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

“Our aim can be nothing less than a steady transformation of the global economy,” Kerry said.

The new draft released by the U.N. climate agency is 29 pages, down from a 43-page version issued Saturday. There are about 100 places where there are decisions still to be made, including multiple options left in brackets, or blank spaces.

A previous draft suggested that intellectual property rights to clean technology be removed so that developing countries such as India could get access to it more easily. That was deleted from the latest draft.

A call for an International Tribunal of Climate Justice to punish rich countries that fail to live up to their commitments was also dropped, as were references to emissions from aviation and shipping.

But the document doesn’t settle the sensitive question of whether advanced developing countries such as China and oil-rich Arab nations should join industrialized countries in providing financial aid.

It also doesn’t spell out the long-term goal of the accord — whether it is to remove carbon emissions from the economy altogether or just reduce them.

Nor does it settle whether governments will aim to limit the global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F) above pre-industrial times or closer to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F).