A new document released by the United Nations outlines various pathways towards a global carbon cutting package due to be agreed in Paris in 2015.
The UN has released a set of options that envoys working on a global climate change deal believe could form the basis of an agreement next year.
These include the potential legal framework behind any treaty, the future role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and possible sanctions against countries that fail to cut carbon emissions.
The 20-page document, written by Kishan Kumarsingh and Artur Runge-Metzger, co-chairs of the negotiating process, aims to stimulate progress at a round of talks in the German city of Bonn in June.
“It summarises our understanding of what Parties have elaborated and proposed to see reflected as elements for a draft negotiating text,” they write, stressing that all enclosed ideas are those of participating countries.
Media reports say the chairs indicate they see the June session as a chance to identify a “limited number of options”.
However, the huge variety of suggestions outlined by the latest document indicates this in itself will be challenging.
There appears to be no resolution over which countries are expected to take the greatest burden of emission cuts, a key point of conflict between some developed and developing countries.
The proposed legal nature of any deal still seems vague, with options for international, domestic or some form of obligation to contribute all on the cards.
Negotiators also seem undecided over whether they should aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, a target favoured by climate vulnerable states, or 2.0°C, a level agreed in 2009.
The UN wants a draft agreement to be presented at the main climate summit of 2014, which takes place in Lima this December.
National and regional ‘pledges’ to cut carbon pollution are then expected to start falling into place at the start of 2015, although it remains unclear what will happen if they are deemed insufficient to avert dangerous levels of warming.
