The timing was impeccable.

Two days after delegates from more than 190 countries gathered in Lima, Peru, at the annual climate summit, the World Meteorological Organization released a report that said 2014 is currently tied for the hottest year on record, rejecting claims that global warming has paused.

The clock is ticking, said scientists from across the world and greenhouse gas emissions have to be curbed and quickly.

That is not exactly what is expected to happen in Lima at the two-week summit. The delegates are trying to lay the groundwork for what, hopefully, will become a major international pact to reduce emissions when negotiators reconvene in Paris next December, when a deal must be reached to keep the warming to 2 degrees Celsius.

The 2015 agreement will focus on climate actions after 2020.

This summit is also a chance to hear how far major polluters like India, Brazil and Mexico are willing to go to slow global warming.

Until a few weeks ago, many observers didn’t think the Lima talks would reap any results. But the U.S.-China emissions deal last month has injected new hope into the talks.

But what would it take for these talks to be considered successful? Three things, at least, say experts:

* Set guidelines for what countries will include in their climate plans for after 2020.

* Consider how to regularly check on progress.

* Recognize the importance of global pricing.

“For me, understanding that we need to have global pricing of emissions is critical,” said Andrew Weaver, a Green Party MLA in British Columbia and the Lansdowne professor at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at the University of Victoria. “Each country can work within its jurisdiction to do what is the best but until we put a price on emissions, we won’t deal with it.”

Then, if countries don’t comply, “you can start to use trade barriers.”

What people really want is a hopeful outcome, he said. “An outcome that actually says that we are going to get something done. Leaders need to win the trust of their citizens by making responsible statements.”

It would be good to see other countries follow U.S. and China and put their post-2020 targets on the table, said Dale Marshall, the national program manager for Environmental Defence.

“Canada should, as a first step, at least match the U.S. commitment (on emissions),” said Marshall, adding that more countries donating to the Green Climate Fund would also indicate success at Lima.

(The fund was established in 2010 to help developing countries fight climate change. The one-day climate summit in New York in September saw the addition of billions of dollars to it with big money coming from Germany and France.)

But as a Canadian, Tom Pedersen, executive director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions in Victoria, wants to see Canada start playing a leadership role once again.

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“We used to have a reputation, internationally-respected, as an environmental leader,” he said. “That perspective that was widely held internationally has now diminished substantially and we are now seen as not contributing to progress. We need to reverse that position.”

He called the China-U.S. pact remarkable, one that that has “put everyone else on the planet on notice. That the two biggest emitters on the planet are serious … what I would like to come out of Lima is for Canada to say: we, too, are serious about doing something about climate change.”

“I would really like to see that.”

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