Cop26: Draft text calls for stronger emissions-cutting plans but issues remain

A draft text on a Cop26 agreement was circulated early on Tuesday with significant commitments to phasing out coal and subsidies for fossil fuels, and a call on countries to strengthen targets in cutting greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2022.

The document underscores the concerns of climate experts and activists that there is a yawning gap between current national pledges and the kinds of cuts required to ensure the world avoids catastrophic climate impacts.

While the text will undergo significant revisions as countries negotiate over language in the run up to the United Nations summit’s conclusion at the weekend, it reinforces the need to limit global warming by 1.5 degrees – the more demanding Paris agreement target.

The draft text recognises this “requires rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, including reducing global carbon dioxide emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 relative to the 2010 level and to net zero around mid-century” – targets considered by climate experts to be critical to staying within 1.5 degrees.

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The contentious issue of how soon after the end of Cop26 countries should submit new climate targets to the UN remains, after pledges made so far have fallen short. The UK, United States, European Union and other countries want all countries to come up with new targets by the end of 2022, a significant acceleration from the 2025 deadline in the Paris climate accord.

However, China and other big emitters including Saudi Arabia are resisting this, insisting on staying with the original five-year time frames in the Paris pact. The UK aims to address the issue as one of the major sticking points in the final texts that will sum up the conclusions of the Cop26 when negotiations end, according to officials.

Revisit national goals

The current document “urges parties to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets” in what are known as nationally determined contributions, “as necessary to align with the Paris agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022”.

Current national pledges, submitted by 152 countries ahead of and during the Glasgow summit, put the world on course for between 2.5 degrees and 2.7 degrees of warming by the end of the century – though some analysts suggest if they are fully implemented a temperature limit of less than 2 degrees could be achieved.

The draft “cover decision”, which will become the final summit declaration, “expresses alarm that human activities have caused around 1.1 degrees of warming to date and that impacts are already being felt in every region” of the world.

It notes with serious concern that current provision of climate finance for developing countries to become climate resilient, under the “adaptation” heading, is insufficient to respond to worsening climate disruption.

The draft urges developed country parties to urgently scale-up their provision of climate finance for adaptation, and provide “significantly enhanced support for beyond the $100 billion /[€86.5 billion/] per year climate finance mobilisation goal”.

Criticism

Greenpeace International director Jennifer Morgan said: “This draft deal is not a plan to solve the climate crisis, it’s an agreement that we’ll all cross our fingers and hope for the best. It’s a polite request that countries maybe, possibly, do more next year. Well, that’s not good enough and the negotiators shouldn’t even think about leaving this city until they’ve agreed a deal that meets the moment. Because, most assuredly, this one does not.

“We’ve just had a landmark study showing we’re heading for 2.4 degrees of warming. The job of this conference was always to get that number down to 1.5 degrees, but with this text world leaders are punting it to next year. If this is the best they can come up with then it’s no wonder kids today are furious at them,” she added.

The text needed to be much stronger on finance and adaptation and include real numbers “in the hundreds of billions”, with a delivery plan for richer countries to support less developed nations, the Cop veteran suggested. “And we need to see a deal that commits countries to coming back every year with new and better plans until together they get us over the bar and we can stay below 1.5 degrees of warming.”

“While the text calls for an accelerated phase out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies, wreckers like the Saudi and Australian governments will be working to gut that part before this conference closes,” Ms Morgan predicted. “Ministers now have three days to turn this around and get the job done here in Glasgow instead of once again kicking the climate can down the road,” she said.