With 2014 on track to become the warmest year on record and time running short, more than 190 nations began talks on a new worldwide deal to limit greenhouse gas emissions and keep global warming from causing irreversible damage.
New targets for fossil fuel use were announced ahead of the climate conference by the U.S., the European Union and China, the first Asian nation to make such a pledge. This has injected optimism into negotiations that are supposed to climax in Paris next year with the adoption of a long-awaited climate pact.
But India, Russia, Japan and Australia have yet to commit to new limits; and scientists say much sharper emissions cuts are needed in coming decades to keep global warming within 2 degrees C (3.6 F) of pre-industrial times, the overall goal of the U.N. talks. Global temperatures have already risen about 0.8 degrees C (1.3 F), and more heat-trapping gases are emitted every year.
In this Sept. 15, 2009, photo a forest in the Amazon is seen being illegally burnt, near Novo Progresso, in the northern Brazilian state of Para. The cutting of trees, scientists say, is hindering the immense jungle’s ability to absorb carbon from the air and to pull enough water through tree roots to supply gigantic “sky rivers” that move more moisture than the Amazon river itself. More than two-thirds of the rain in southeastern Brazil, home to 40 percent of its population, comes from these sky rivers, studies estimate. When they dry up, drought follows, scientists believe. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Every degree of warming can cause long-lasting impacts, from melting ice caps and rising sea levels to the loss of species.
“Human influence on the climate system is clear,” Rajendra Pachauri, who leads the U.N.’s panel of climate-change experts, told delegates at the opening session in Lima, Peru, on Monday, Dec.1, 2014.
To have a decent chance of reversing the warming trend before the planet hits the 2-degree mark, the world needs to slash emissions by 40 percent to 70 percent by 2050 and to near-zero by the end of the century, according to the panel’s assessments.
Scientists are practically united in warning that there’s no way to meet this goal by continuing business as usual.
It would require a sustained, permanent, worldwide shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources to power homes, cars and industries. And even then, the transition might not happen fast enough without a large-scale deployment of new technologies to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
In this Aug. 29, 1938 photo, smoke rises from smokestacks at Skoda’s main foundry in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. A new study looking at 11,000 years of climate temperatures shows the world in the middle of a dramatic U-turn, lurching from near-record cooling to a heat spike. It shows how the globe for several thousands of years was cooling until an unprecedented reversal in the 20th century, which scientists say is further evidence that global warming isn’t natural but man-made since the start of the Industrial Revolution. (AP Photo)
Sam Dy, 13 years, searches for bits of plastic or other trash that might be of value at the Stung Meanchy dump on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in this Thursday, June 15, 2006, photo. (AP Photo/David Longstreath)
“We call on the world to ensure the opportunity does not slip away,” said Nauru’s Marlene Moses, representing a group of Pacific island nations threatened by rising seas.
The biggest challenge for the U.N.-sponsored talks is dividing responsibilities between rich Western countries and emerging economies such as China and India. The poorest and most vulnerable nations also need help to develop their economies without aggravating global warming, and to adapt to climate changes that are already causing more violent weather, prolonged droughts and intense flooding.
Retreating snow cover exposes barren rock near Cape Folger on the Budd Coast in the Australian Antarctic Territory on Jan. 11, 2008. Australia’s CSIRO’s atmospheric research unit has found the world is warming faster than predicted by the United Nations’ top climate change body, with harmful emissions exceeding worst-case estimates. (AP Photo/Torsten Blackwood)
The July 17, 2007 file photo shows an iceberg floating in a bay off Ammassalik Island, Greenland. (AP Photo/John McConnico)
In this July 19, 2007 photo, an iceberg melts off the coast of Ammasalik, Greenland. (AP Photo/John McConnico)
Giant tabular icebergs surrounded by ice floe adrift in Vincennes Bay in the Australian Antarctic Territory on January 11, 2008. Australia’s CSIRO’s atmospheric research unit has found the world is warming faster than predicted by the United Nations’ top climate change body, with harmful emissions exceeding worst-case estimates. (AP Photo/Torsten Blackwood)
An enormous iceberg, right, breaks off the Knox Coast in the Australian Antarctic Territory on Jan. 11, 2008. Australia’s CSIRO’s atmospheric research unit has found the world is warming faster than predicted by the United Nations’ top climate change body, with harmful emissions exceeding worst-case estimates. (AP Photo/Torsten Blackwood)
Among them is host country Peru, whose glaciers are melting ever-faster, threatening water supplies on the coastal desert where 70 percent of its citizens live and threatening the nation’s hydropower and food security.
The negotiators in Lima are focusing on a draft agreement that can be refined before the Paris meeting a year from now.
Developing countries also want rich nations to make good on promises of financing to reduce emissions and mitigate climate change impacts, which range from the spread of diseases to coastal flooding to major disruptions to agriculture.
An Indian man walks though a tunnel decorated with several murals during the Climate Change Conference in Lima, Peru, Monday, Dec. 1, 2014. Delegates from more than 190 countries will meet in Lima for the next two weeks to work on drafts for a global climate deal that is supposed to be adopted next year in Paris. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
There’s no common agreement on how that money should be used; for example, The Associated Press found that Japan has spent $1 billion of its climate financing on new power plants in Indonesia that burn coal — the top source of man-made emissions. Japan says it improves the environment because the new plans burn cleaner, but critics said coal has no place in climate financing.
The U.N.’s weather agency is expected to present temperature data showing 2014 could be the hottest year on record.
Peru is among the countries most affected. The Andean nation has 70 percent of the world’s tropical glaciers, which have lost more than a fifth of their mass in just three decades, putting 300,000 highlanders under severe stress as pastures and croplands dry up, the planting cycle becomes more erratic and cold snaps more severe. Lima is the world’s second-largest desert capital after Cairo, Egypt, and its 10 million inhabitants depend on glacial runoff for hydropower and to irrigate crops.
The Vallunaraju mountain stands high in the Andes, early morning in Huaraz, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. Peru’s glaciers have lost more one-fifth of their mass in just three decades, and the 70 percent of Peru’s 30 million people who inhabit the country’s Pacific coastal desert, depend on glacial runoff for hydropower and to irrigate crops, meaning their electricity and long-term food security could also be in peril. Higher alpine temperatures are killing off plant and animal species in cloud forests and scientists predict Pacific fisheries will suffer. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
The retreating ice of the Huascaran glacier is seen in the Huascaran National Park in Huaraz, Peru, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014. Glaciers have lost more one-fifth of their mass in just three decades, and the 70 percent of Peru’s 30 million people who inhabit the country’s Pacific coastal desert, depend on glacial runoff for hydropower and to irrigate crops, meaning their electricity and long-term food security could also be in peril. Higher alpine temperatures are killing off plant and animal species in cloud forests and scientists predict Pacific fisheries will suffer. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
The Contrayerba glacier is reflected in a lagoon in the Huascaran National Park in Huaraz, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. Peru’s glaciers have lost more one-fifth of their mass in just three decades, and the 70 percent of Peru’s 30 million people who inhabit the country’s Pacific coastal desert, depend on glacial runoff for hydropower and to irrigate crops, meaning their electricity and long-term food security could also be in peril. Higher alpine temperatures are killing off plant and animal species in cloud forests and scientists predict Pacific fisheries will suffer. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Latin America and the Caribbean cause less than 10 percent of global emissions, and yet its people are already shouldering and oversized burden. Climate change is blamed for the extinction of plants and animals in Andean cloud forests and for damaging offshore fisheries. Even if warmer weather benefits industrial agriculture in some places, more people are expected to go hungry as subsistence farming suffers.
The regional economic damage from all this will reach $100 billion a year by mid-century, according to research done for the Inter-American Development bank.
“The people with the least intensive climate lifestyles are suffering the most,” said geographer Jeffrey Bury of The University of California at Santa Cruz, who studies the social and economic impacts of glacier loss.
“I think we can use the Andes high mountain environment,” he said, “to understand what the future holds for the rest of us.”
Simon Bolivar, 63, walks towards his plot of land where he grows corn and potatoes in Huaraz, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. Villagers claim that due to global warming, each year there are more frost out of season and their crops are affected. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
The Huascaran glacier is seen in the Huascaran National Park in Huaraz, Peru, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
The Contrayerba glacier is seen in the Huascaran National Park in Huaraz, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. Peru’s glaciers have lost more one-fifth of their mass in just three decades, and the 70 percent of Peru’s 30 million people who inhabit the country’s Pacific coastal desert, depend on glacial runoff for hydropower and to irrigate crops, meaning their electricity and long-term food security could also be in peril. Higher alpine temperatures are killing off plant and animal species in cloud forests and scientists predict Pacific fisheries will suffer. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
The glacier Huascaran is seen in Huaraz, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. Peru’s glaciers have lost more one-fifth of their mass in just three decades, and the 70 percent of Peru’s 30 million people who inhabit the country’s Pacific coastal desert, depend on glacial runoff. Higher alpine temperatures are killing off plant and animal species in cloud forests. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Women gather outside a house in Huaraz, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Women herd their sheep to their village in Huaraz, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Women buy vegetables at a popular market in Yungay, Peru, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2014. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Fausta Ortiz, 38, Pastoruri’s glacier guardian, stands guard while carrying her daughter Lisoyun, 2, in Huaraz, Peru, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. According to Alejo Cochachin, coordinator of the glaciology unit, the Pastoruri glacier retreated 576 meters between 1980 and 2014. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Members of the glaciology unit of the Peruvian national water authority walk on Pastoruri glacier in Huaraz, Peru, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014. According to Alejo Cochachin, coordinator of the glaciology unit, The Pastoruri glacier retreated 576 meters between 1980 and 2014. Peru’s glaciers have lost more one-fifth of their mass in just three decades, and the 70 percent of Peru’s 30 million people who inhabit the country’s Pacific coastal desert, depend on glacial runoff for hydropower and to irrigate crops, meaning their electricity and long-term food security could also be in peril. Higher alpine temperatures are killing off plant and animal species in cloud forests and scientists predict Pacific fisheries will suffer. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A woman looks to the glacier Contrayerba in the Huascaran National Park in Huaraz, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. Peru’s glaciers have lost more one-fifth of their mass in just three decades, and the 70 percent of Peru’s 30 million people who inhabit the country’s Pacific coastal desert, depend on glacial runoff for hydropower and to irrigate crops, meaning their electricity and long-term food security could also be in peril. Higher alpine temperatures are killing off plant and animal species in cloud forests and scientists predict Pacific fisheries will suffer. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Text by AP news story, Climate Change Impacts Heat Up UN Talks in Lima, by Karl Ritter and Frank Bajak
Lead Image Caption: The edge of the retreating ice of the Contrayerba glacier is seen in the Huascaran National Park in Huaraz, Peru, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2014. Peru’s glaciers have lost more one-fifth of their mass in just three decades, and the 70 percent Peru’s 30 million people who inhabit the country’s Pacific coastal desert, depend on glacial runoff for hydropower and to irrigate crops, meaning their electricity and long-term food security could also be in peril. Higher alpine temperatures are killing off plant and animal species in cloud forests and scientists predict Pacific fisheries will suffer. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
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