GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES from all over the world have approved an agreement at a UN conference on Climate Change, creating a new €75bn ($100bn) fund to help developing countries deal with the effects of global ewarming.
The deal was reached in the early hours of Saturday morning after talks between representatives from 190 countries continued late into the night, with various factions in disagreement on the best way to help to cut carbon emissions.
The agreement marks a resurrection-0f-sorts of the hopes of the UN to power through a solution to the climate change problems, and follow the collapse of the Copenhagen talks last year which ended without any major agreement.
The deal was not universally supported, however; Bolivia had claimed the agreement was “tantamount to genocide” saying that the main elements of the agreement – a global agreement that will see each country pledge to cut emissions, though not by any set amount – would not be enough to curb the further melting of the polar icecaps.
Despite repeated vocal calls for a universal consensus, however, the talks’ chair Patricia Espinosa – Mexico’s foreign minister – said the draft deal would be adopted.
The deal has been welcomed by Green Party junior minister Ciaran Cuffe, who represented Ireland at the talks, who said the agreement would save the UN’s climate change campaign.
“I very much welcome the steps to protect tropical forests and new processes for sharing clean energy technologies…. The Irish Government is currently finalizing a legislative proposal that will provide statutory backing for our immediate and medium term mitigation targets, and our longer-term transition objective,” Cuffe said.
Speaking at the conference on Thursday, Cuffe promised a €23m contribution from Ireland to the new global fund.
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