Cop 21: Arab states block 1.5°C limit: UpdateOREANDA-NEWS. December 07, 2015. Arab League states, led by Saudi Arabia, have blocked a move to tighten the internationally agreed 2°C global warming limit to 1.5°C, despite majority support among countries for a tougher goal to be adopted under the global climate deal being negotiated in Paris.

The group's blocking of the 1.5°C limit means a tougher temperature target is unlikely to be adopted under the Paris agreement, which will render the deal weaker. The results of an expert review from 2013-15 found dangers in breaching a global warming limit of 1.5°C.

The proposal for a 1.5°C temperature goal, called for by more than 100 countries and led by those that are more vulnerable to climate change, gained added traction earlier in the week when France and Germany became the first industrialised nations to support the stricter limit.

But India and China were also "less adamant" in adopting a 1.5°C temperature goal and, in the end, only agreed to approving procedural conclusions, according to aid organisation Care International's climate change advocacy co-ordinator Sven Harmeling.

Meanhwhile, the co-chairs of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Durban Platform for Enhanced Action (ADP) — a subsidiary UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) body established in 2011 to develop the components of a new global climate deal — released a new draft with compromise proposals that it hopes will find support among delegates in the ADP working group.

UN negotiators were due to reconvene today and agree a final text before the ADP group's proceedings come to a close. French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, who is presiding as the climate summit's president, has set a strict deadline of 12:00 local time tomorrow for having ADP's finalised proposals.

Fabius expressed hope that the text will contain many compromise solutions and few items that remain to be agreed. On 7 December, ministers will receive the finalised ADP document to use in the summit's high-level negotiations.

"We are not there yet. But I sincerely hope that the spirit of compromise will allow us to make progress and that the new text submitted to me tomorrow morning will be as finalised as possible," he said.

Fabius said he was very sympathetic to island states' insistence that a 1.5°C temperature limit should be referenced in the text, because for them the issue is a matter of survival. "They want measures to address their specific situation. I hope we will achieve that," Fabius said.

Island nations and other vulnerable states' concerns over holding the global temperature rise to 1.5°C were legitimate, US special envoy for climate change Todd Stern said. The US is in active discussions with island states and others about finding a way to have 1.5°C referenced, Stern said. "We haven't landed anywhere yet, but we're looking for a way to deal with those concerns," he said.

The insistence on a 1.5°C limit, or opposition to such a target, will not prevent a deal from being reached in Paris, UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres said.

All parties agree that carrying out the deepest decarbonisation possible is what is needed, Figueres said. Despite the Arab League states' blocking of a stricter global warming limit, she said 1.5°C, or below 2°C, should be the aim, and that range offers wide scope to find acceptable language.

"That is what we're talking about when we're talking about 1.5°C to 2°C. It is not a discussion about the temperature — that is just a proxy. The discussion is about the decarbonisation of the economy," she said.