Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action

The Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action (AWF-LCA), which is commissioned to draft a post Kyoto Protocol Treaty, has edited a 180-page draft negotiation document down to six pages. The draft text, authored by Michael Zammit Cutajar, right, the chair of AWF-LCA, outlines the critical questions that need to be resolved before the talks end Dec. 18, 2009.

The new document still proposes multiple options establishes the parameters for what both industrialized and major developing countries would do to address climate change, and outlines how richer nations could finance climate actions by poorer ones. The Cutajar draft stipulates that the world should seek to keep global temperatures from rising beyond a ceiling of either 2.7 or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels. It offers several possible targets developed countries could use for cutting their greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, compared to 1990 levels: by a range of 25 to 40 percent; by 30 percent; by 40 percent; or by 45 percent. The draft also says that major developing countries should cut their carbon output by between 15 and 30 percent in the same period, compared to business as usual. (Wash Post, 12/11/09)

The report of the AWG-LCA on its seventh session including an annex which compiles the texts arising out of the session

Provisional agenda and annotations