UN wants draft climate pact in two weeks

The United Nations is asking international negotiators to write a draft agreement to fight climate change in just under two weeks.

The Feb. 13 deadline for the draft coincides with the end of a meeting of the representatives in Geneva.

{mosads}The meeting is the first since diplomats met in Lima, Peru, to hammer out a rough draft of the pact to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

That session exposed widening rifts between rich and poor nations over their responsibilities to cut emissions, and disappointed environmental groups for not resulting in a stronger agreement.

“The contact group will be tasked to streamline language and eliminate redundancies and duplications, better present alternatives and divergences, and clarify, to the extent possible, proposals and concepts,” Ahmed Djoghlaf from Algeria and Dan Reifsnyder from the United States, the co-chairmen of the group working on the pact, wrote to diplomats in a memo.

The draft will come in anticipation of a December meeting in Paris, where the United Nations hopes leaders will come to an all-encompassing agreement through which all countries would agree to certain efforts to fight climate change and help poor countries adapt.