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COP 21 PARIS

CLIMATE

‘Progress’ in Paris climate change talks

Ministers and negotiators from more than 75 nations have made headway in talks ahead of a crunch UN climate summit in Paris, but "the task ahead is considerable", France's foreign minister said Tuesday.

'Progress' in Paris climate change talks
Hollande and other leaders at the 'pre-COP' talks which concluded Tuesday. Photo: Stephanie De Sakutin/AFP

Laurent Fabius, who will preside over the November 30th-December 11th conference in Paris, told journalists the three days of talks, which ended Tuesday, had been an important step and “progress has been made on at least five points”.

But he warned “the task ahead is considerable”.

UN climate chief Christiana Figueres added: “It continues to be entirely possible to come to an agreement… despite all the challenges in front of us.”

Fabius announced that 117 heads of state and government – including US President Barack Obama, China's Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi of India and Russia's Vladimir Putin – have confirmed they will attend the summit, tasked with inking a pact to stave off dangerous levels of global warming.

A rough draft of that hoped-for agreement has been drawn up by rank-and-file diplomats, with ministers set to sign the final deal at the end of the Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris.

The deal will be underpinned by national pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels blamed for climate change.

The “pre-COP” meeting sought to identify areas of potential compromise on issues still dividing nations and so avoid a repeat of the 2009 Copenhagen summit, which ended without a binding global pact.

Fabius said there was momentum towards ensuring that countries ratchet up their efforts to slash carbon pollution beyond pledges submitted ahead of the
summit.

“A review should take place every five years… to prepare an upward revision of national plans,” he said. Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest crude oil exporter, filed its climate pledge on Tuesday, saying up to 130 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year would be “avoided” by 2030.

 'Matter of survival'

Current national plans would yield average global temperatures three degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times – far beyond the 2C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) limit that scientists say is the threshold for dangerous warming.

“The COP 21 will put in place the mechanism to close the gap,” Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, Peru's environment minister, told AFP. “Getting to 2C depends on boosting our ambition.”

Enshrining the principle that nations would not be allowed to backtrack on their carbon-cutting promises is also gaining ground, Fabius said.

Another make-or-break issue on the table in the three-day talks was money for developing nations to help them decarbonize their economies, and shore up defences against unavoidable climate impacts.

“Climate finance was very central” to the discussions, said Thoriq Ibrahim, Minister of the Environment and Energy for the Maldives, one of many small island  states whose very existence is threatened by rising sea levels.

“Adaptation is a matter of survival for us,” he told AFP. “Nobody wants to leave the Maldives, we are there to stay.”

African leaders said they were looking to the talks for solutions to electrify the continent, grow its economies and keep their young people from fleeing abroad.

The 195-nation UN climate forum has officially adopted the goal of limiting global warming to 2C, but many vulnerable and poor nations are pushing for that threshold to be lowered to 1.5C.

Recent scientific studies have shown that even if the 2C goal is attained, the impact could be devastating in many parts of the world.

 A 2C rise would submerge land currently occupied by 280 million people, while an increase of 4C would cover areas home to 600 million, according to a study published by Climate Central, a US-based research group.
 

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CLIMATE

Central and southern Italy brace for storms and heavy snow

Storms and snowfall are forecast across much of central and southern Italy over the next few days, according to weather reports.

Snow is forecast in the hills of much of central and southern Italy.
Snow is forecast in the hills of much of central and southern Italy. Photo: Miguel MEDINA / AFP

Italy’s Civil Protection Department on Monday issued ‘orange’ alerts for bad weather along Campania’s Tyrrhenian coastline and the western part of Calabria, while Sicily, Basilicata, Lazio, Molise, Umbria, Abruzzo, central-western Sardinia, and the remaining areas of Campania and Calabria are under a lower-level ‘yellow’ weather warning.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts is warning Italy’s central-southern regions to prepare for a blast of polar air from the Arctic Circle that will bring heavy snowfall, rain and storms, reports national weather forecaster Il Meteo.

The village of Grotte di Castro in the province of Viterbo, two hours’ drive north of Rome, mountainous parts of Sardinia, and much of the province of Campobasso in the central-eastern region of Molise were already blanketed in snow on Monday morning.

The department is responsible for predicting, preventing and managing emergency events across the country, and uses a green, yellow, orange and red graded colour coding system for weather safety reports.

An orange alert signifies a heavy rainfall, landslide and flood risk, while a yellow alert warns of localised heavy and potentially dangerous rainfall.

The current meteorological conditions mean that snow is expected to reach unusually low altitudes of around 450-500 metres, with flakes already falling thickly on parts of the southern-central Apennines mountain range at 500-700 metres altitude.

The hills of Marche, Abruzzo, Molise, Lazio, Sardinia, Campania, Calabria and Basilicata are likely to see heavy snow around the 500m mark, while areas at an altitude of 1000m or higher will see between 50-60 cm of fresh snow.

Affected parts of the country could see 50-60cm of snowfall.

Affected parts of the country could see 50-60cm of snowfall. Photo: Vincenzo PINTO /AFP

In areas where the snow is unlikely to reach, heavy rains and thunderstorms are anticipated, with rain forecast throughout Sardinia, Campania, Calabria and Lazio, reports Il Meteo.

Strong winds are forecast over the whole country, with the island regions of Sicily and Sardinia facing windspeeds of over 100km/hour and the risk of storm surges, according to the national newspaper La Repubblica.

READ ALSO: Climate crisis: The Italian cities worst affected by flooding and heatwaves

The north of the country, meanwhile, will see sun but low temperatures of below 0°C at night in many areas, including across much of the Po Valley.

While conditions are expected to stabilise on Tuesday, cold currents from Northern Europe are forecast to trigger another wave of bad weather on Wednesday and Thursday, with Sardinia and Italy’s western coastline again at risk of storms and heavy rainfall that will move up towards Lombardy, Emilia Romagna and Veneto in the north.

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