利马气候谈判艰难落下帷幕

The fortnight it took for UN climate talks to finally stagger to an end in Lima yesterday morning has shaken many assumptions about what it will take to achieve the historic global climate deal due to be sealed in Paris next December.

持续两周的联合国气候谈判利马会议昨日上午蹒跚撑到终点。对于需要付出怎样的努力才能在明年12月的巴黎会议上达成历史性的全球气候协定，这两周的经历动摇了人们的许多设想。

“If so much blood flows negotiating the prenuptial, what does that mean for the marriage?” asked Yvo de Boer, a former UN climate chief who heads the Global Green Growth Institute that helps developing nations.

“如果谈判婚前协议要流这么多血，那么这对婚姻意味着什么？”曾是联合国气候变化机构负责人、如今执掌全球绿色增长研究所(Global Green Growth Institute)的伊沃•德波尔(Yvo de Boer)表示。全球绿色增长研究所为发展中国家提供帮助。

The Lima meeting did eventually manage to fulfil its main aim of approving guidelines for how countries will set out their plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the lead-up to the Paris agreement.

利马会议最终确实设法达到了主要目标，即批准了各国在巴黎会议之前应当如何制定减排计划的指引。

The agreement, if it is approved, would be the first to commit all countries to make such reductions.

有望在巴黎达成的协定如果获得批准，将是首份要求所有国家削减温室气体排放的全球气候协定。

But this only happened after a fraught round of negotiations that ran more than 30 hours overtime and sometimes appeared to be in danger of collapsing.

但上述指引是在经过一轮艰辛的谈判之后才达成的。利马谈判超时30多个小时，而且有时似乎面临谈崩的危险。

This is not that unusual. Few of the mammoth annual climate negotiations the UN has conducted over the past 20 years have ended on time, forcing negotiators to sleep where they can in their offices as meetings drag on through the night.

这种局面并非那么不同寻常。过去20年里，联合国主持的庞大年度气候谈判很少按时结束，各国谈判代表不得不在办公室里随便找个地方小睡片刻，因为会议会彻夜举行。

What made this year’s round of pyjama diplomacy especially sobering, however, was the nature of the disputes and the expectations that had preceded it.

然而，今年这轮“睡衣外交”特别发人深省的地方在于纠纷的性质和会前的期望。

The delegates who arrived in the temporary white tent venue that was erected for the conference in Peru’s army headquarters had been buoyed by events that had raised hopes this meeting would be far less contentious than its predecessors.

当谈判代表们抵达秘鲁陆军总部为本次会议搭建的临时白色帐篷场地时，他们得到近期一些事态的鼓舞；这些事态加大了各方对今年的会议将比往年更加顺利的期待。

The most important were a landmark US-China emissions pact in November and a package of hefty pledges from wealthy countries to help poorer nations deal with climate change that topped the $10bn mark during the Lima conference.

最重要的是美国和中国在11月达成的具有里程碑意义的减排协议，以及富国为帮助穷国应对气候变化而作出的一系列慷慨承诺，这些承诺在利马会议期间突破了100亿美元大关。

These commitments were carefully orchestrated to overcome a long-held suspicion among poor countries that they would never get enough help to create a low-carbon economy and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

这些承诺经过精心策划，目的是化解贫穷国家长期以来的怀疑，即它们将永远得不到足够帮助来创建低碳经济和适应气候变化的影响。

As a result, the UK’s energy secretary, Ed Davey, voiced the views of many when he declared on arrival in Lima: “I am more confident we can achieve a global climate change deal than I have ever been before.”

其结果是，英国能源大臣埃德•戴维(Ed Davey)在抵达利马时说出了很多人的心里话：“我比以往任何时候都更加相信，我们能够达成一份全球气候变化协定。”

It soon became evident that this conference was going to be dogged by the same rifts between rich and poor countries that have long blocked progress in climate talks.

但人们很快就看清本次会议将再次受到富国和穷国之间分歧的困扰。这些分歧曾长期阻碍气候变化谈判取得进展。

Eleven days into the talks, delegates had managed to agree only one 28-word paragraph for the final text of the conference outcome. It said countries should “intensify their high-level engagement” to accelerate action on climate change.

谈判进入第11天之际，各国代表只就会议成果最终文本中一个28个单词长的段落达成共识。该段称，各国应当“加强高层接触”，以加速对气候变化采取行动。

Developing countries have long railed against calls for them to help fix a pollution problem caused by nations that prospered from it.

长期以来，发展中国家一直强烈反对呼吁它们帮助解决由已靠化石燃料实现繁荣的国家造成的污染问题。

Rich countries say that is increasingly unworkable when China is the world’s largest emitter and India is catching up fast.

富国表示，在中国已成为全球最大排放国、印度正迅速赶上的情况下，光靠富国减排已经越来越行不通。

The EU and the US had hoped the talks would be limited to making sure the pledges countries were to volunteer for the Paris deal would focus on emissions reduction.

欧盟和美国此前希望，利马谈判的范围将局限于确保各国为巴黎协定自愿提交的承诺会侧重于减排。

Instead, it rapidly became clear that developing countries wanted to make sure the pledges also included a recognition of the need for financial aid, as well as a firmer acknowledgment of the differences between developed and developing nations.

但很快就变得明朗的是，发展中国家希望确保这些承诺还包括承认有必要提供财务援助，以及对于发达国家和发展中国家之间分歧的更确切承认。

Amendments in the meeting’s draft outcome, including the insertion of a reference to the loss and damage vulnerable countries faced from climate change, eventually ensured the talks succeeded.

对会议成果草案的修订，包括插入关于脆弱国家面对气候变化所造成损失和损害的内容，终于确保利马谈判取得了成功。

But the effort it took to achieve this foreshadows the challenges that lie ahead before Paris.

但是，为此付出的努力预示着巴黎会议面临的挑战。

“I think everybody expected this would be easier,” said Jake Schmidt, a veteran climate talks expert from the Natural Resources Defense Council, a US environmental charity. “What we’ve seen in Lima shows Paris is not going to be an easy undertaking.”

“我想此前大家都预期本次会议会更容易些，”美国环境慈善组织——自然资源保护委员会(Natural Resources Defense Council)的资深气候谈判专家杰克•施密特(Jake Schmidt)表示，“我们在利马看到的情况表明，巴黎谈判不会容易。”