U.S. against raising emission reduction targets in 2015 pact

The United States has urged the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change to ensure that voluntary emission reduction targets would not be reviewed in case public consultations showed that they cumulatively fell short of maintaining the global target temperature of below 2°C.

Outlining its demands for the new climate change agreement to be signed in 2015, the U.S. said the pact — one of the elements of a larger package — should be concise and have only the “core provisions”. “We would [like to] see somewhat more detail on mitigation and transparency [in the agreement] given their specific nature,” the submission reads.

The U.S. indicated that other key elements of climate talks — adaptation, finance and technology — should be addressed among a less onerous set of decisions at the annual negotiations of the convention.

On how the emission targets should be set for countries, the U.S. has said, “We think ambition and participation will be maximised if each party can put forward [an emission-reduction] commitment it deems appropriate and fair for its circumstances and is in a position to implement.”

The U.S. is on board with the idea of an ex-ante clarification on the commitments currently on the table following public consultations. “Of course, under the approach we have described, the effort may, in the aggregate or in the case of individual parties, be sufficient. This will come out during any consultative period that allows for a clear understanding of the parties’ ambitions,” the U.S. said. However, it added a caveat: “Parties may come under pressure to revise their [volunteered] targets upward, but it will ultimately be their choice,” the U.S. said.

The U.S. has also asked for a single transparency regime for all countries instead of a different one for developing countries and another for developed ones.