Climate deal struck after marathon talks; India's concerns met

Negotiators today adopted a compromise draft for national pledges to cut global carbon emissions at marathon UN climate talks here that addressed all of India's concerns and paved way for a new ambitious and binding deal to be signed in Paris next year to combat climate change.
"The document is approved," announced President of the United Nations climate talks meeting Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, who is also the Environment Minister of Peru, after hectic negotiations by officials from 194 countries for about two weeks in the Peruvian capital here.
"I think this is good, and I think this moves us forward," Pulgar-Vidal said.

Commenting on the draft, Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said, "all of India's concerns have been addressed."
"We have achieved targets and we got what we wanted," he said after the delegates approved a broad blueprint for talks leading up to a deal in 2015, to take effect in 2020.
He also remained positive about meetings over the next year and in Paris, saying "we can build on this [Lima text] and build consensus."

The adoption of the draft at the meeting which went into two extra days was seen as a significant first step towards reaching a global climate change deal in Paris - although delegates feel much of the hard work remained ahead.

The deal -- dubbed the Lima Call for Climate Action -- paves the way for what is envisioned as the historic agreement in environmental history.
The agreement was adopted hours after a previous draft was rejected by developing countries, which accused rich nations of shirking their responsibilities to fight global warming and pay for its impacts.
The final draft is said to have alleviated those concerns by saying countries have "common but differentiated responsibilities".
There was a great sense of relief among delegates when the announcement came in the early hours of Sunday morning, as the 12-day meeting had already overrun by two days.

Indian delegation led by Javadekar worked overnight, engaging with developed as well as developing nations to reach the deal taking into account India's concerns.
"We are happy that the final negotiated statement at COP20 in Lima has addressed the concerns of developing countries and mainly the efforts of some countries to re-write the convention has not fructified," Javadekar said.
"It (deal) gives enough space for the developing world to grow and take appropriate nationally determined steps," he said.
The developed world will have to take responsibility for action in technology and capacity building and to that end they will have to provide resources, he said.