Climate Change

“It’s clear they have made progress,” said Jennifer Morgan from the World Resources Institute, “but it is not over till it is over.”

The numbers of options for ministers to decide from has been radically reduced – a gamble from the French presidency of the COP.

The new version of a deal would commit 195 countries to slash net carbon emissions to zero in the second half of this century, involving radical cuts in fossil fuel use and a significant rise in deployment of clean energy and carbon capture technologies.

The assurance was conveyed during a one hour dialogue led by Foreign Affairs Minister, Julie Bishop, on Wednesday morning with ministers from 12 of the 16 Forum Island Countries.

Australia is a key member of the Umbrella Group comprised of Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Kazakstan, Norway, Russian Federation, Ukraine and the United States.

Minister Bennett refused to give New Zealand’s support to an explicit goal in the Paris climate agreement to limit global warming to a 1.5 degree increase, despite growing support from allies including Australia

That's why activists, backed by some big names such as actor, bodybuilder and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, are taking a gentle approach at this year's United Nations climate summit in Paris to tackling the world's greenhouse gas-intensive love affair with meat, ranging from offering lookalike plant burgers to suggesting a gradual weaning off animal protein.

The representatives met ahead of the second week of United Nations climate change negotiations

“Last week, the international community moved another step closer to adopting an effective and durable climate change agreement, but, make no mistake, our work is far from complete. “We are acutely aware the survival of our members is hanging in the balance in Paris and that a bad deal may be worse than no deal at all.”

To ensure success, we must accelerate the pace and ensure the final agreement maintains meaningful outcomes on all of the pillars from the Durban mandate:

In an in interview at the margins of COP21 negotiations for a new global agreement on climate change that enter its second and final week today, Deputy PM Sovaleni said any temperature increase above 1.5 degrees will severely impact the island kingdom.

He added Tonga is playing its part in proposing mitigation and adaptation goals through the submissions of its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, INDCs to the UNFCCC. Key targets in Tonga’s INDC include;

· 50% of electricity generation from renewable energy by 2020, and 70% by 2030

Tuvalu Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga called for the small island developing states to band together and fight off “serious attempts” to drive a wedge between them.

The call highlights the tensions emerging between even the most tight-knit collections of countries in Paris after days of lengthy and slow negotiations.

The Prime Minister is upset he wasn't invited to a meeting between some Pacific Island nations, including Kiribati, and United States President Barack Obama last week.

The commissioner, Dame Meg Taylor, who also heads the secretariat of the Pacific Islands Forum, says the world leaders meeting on climate change in Paris must set ambitious targets and limit global warming to below 1.5 degrees celsius.

She says the ocean, climate and weather are all linked with the impacts of climate change on the Pacific already being felt by many.

Prime Minister of Tuvalu Enele Sopoaga said the negotiations are painfully 'slow,' as he went onto accuse the bigger countries of employing delaying tactics.

This has been clarified by officials of an advisory group on climate change and human mobility.