申論題

The United Nations climate conference ambled toward a conclusion on Friday, with delegates saying that the meeting would produce no more than a modest set of measures toward a new international agreement two years from now. As usual, the biggest dispute was over money. 

The talks, the 19th annual meeting of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, opened nearly two weeks ago in the shadow of a devastating typhoon in the Philippines. The disaster added momentum to a proposal by poorer nations for the creation of a new mechanism to compensate developing countries for damage from climate-related disasters. 

With the clock winding down and the talks likely to extend into Friday night, the socalled loss-and-damage proposal remained alive. But the wealthy countries that would presumably provide financing for the plan were offering a weaker alternative that would wrap it into an existing area of the climate treaty. 

“There are no surprises here,” said Ronald Jumeau, a Seychelles diplomat who acts as spokesman for the Alliance of Small Island States, countries likely to be damaged by rising seas and more intensive storms as greenhouse gases trap ever more energy in the atmosphere. “It’s brinkmanship.”