By VIOLET MENGO
The negotiating process for a "legal framework" to make countries cut their carbon emissions after 2020 should "begin immediately", according to the draft text currently being debated by ministers and officials at Durban.
The text, seen by some journalists, follows most of the "EU roadmap" towards a new global agreement, which has been the subject of frantic negotiations in the final hours of the two-week conference, scheduled to end on Friday.
However, there are crucial differences, and it will be difficult for some countries, including India and China, to sign up to the text as it stands.
The text requires countries to "launch a process in order to develop a legal framework applicable to all" developed and developing countries. That means a framework agreement under which countries would commit to fresh targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions, "after 2020" when their current – but non-binding – targets run out.
The phrase "legal framework" falls short of the "legally binding treaty" that the EU wants, but may be vague enough to allow the US – which is wary of a new treaty – to agree.
That negotiating process should "begin immediately" and the negotiations should finish "as early as possible but no later than 2015", which is what the EU wants. The US, however, has strongly objected to setting such a date.
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