Cop26: New draft deal weakens wording on phase-out of fossil fuels

The Cop26 negotiations have generated a second draft of an agreement calling for 197 countries to submit stronger emissions-reduction plans next year – but undertakings on phasing out coal and fossil fuel subsides have been weakened.

The latest draft, which emerged after 7am on Friday, has raised new issues, centring around language, commitments and timings for climate action over the next decade. This suggests a difficult 24 hours ahead if a meaningful outcome is to be secured.

The second version of the text includes a request that countries come back by the end of next year with revised emission-reduction targets outlined in their “national determined contributions” – this, in effect, indicates commitments made by signatory countries up to this point are insufficient to contain global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees this century.

The text has been criticised for lack of detail on future payments from the rich countries that are primarily responsible for global warming to the poorer countries that will take the brunt of worsening storms, droughts and floods and rising sea levels – these are under the climate finance, adaptation and loss and damage headings.

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Irish climate expert and Cop veteran Prof John Sweeney told The Irish Times the latest text was “watered down terribly overnight”; notably the language on fossil fuels and coal had been made ambiguous. This is backing away from a call to end all use of coal and phase out fossil fuel subsidies completely in the earlier draft.

Equally, renewables had been amended to “low-emission fuels”, which he believed was “opening the door for [continued use] of gas”.

Prof Sweeney said the latest version seemed like "the tail wagging the dog" and it remains to be seen if the European Union side will now come out and impose red lines in an effort to strengthen the outcome. "There is now agreement to keep 1.5 degrees alive in my view," he added – though he welcomed a request to come back with strengthened commitments by the end of next year.

‘Huge loopholes’

“While the words ‘coal’ and ‘fossil fuels’ have remained in the new draft decision, huge new loopholes have been introduced that see these efforts significantly weakened,” said Murray Worthy, gas campaign leader at NGO Global Witness.

He added: “The aim to phase out all fossil fuel subsidies has now been rowed back to just ‘inefficient’ subsidies – which begs the question of what an efficient use of public money to bankroll the fossil fuel industry could possibly be. This term has been used at the G7 and the G20, but never been properly defined, and leaves an enormous space for countries to claim their subsidies aren’t ‘inefficient’.”

The latest draft proposal from the meeting’s chair calls on countries to accelerate “the phase-out of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”.

While the chair’s proposal will undergo further negotiation at the talks, officially due to end Friday, the change in wording suggested a shift away from unconditional demands that some big fossil fuel-exporting nations have objected to.

In addition, delegates and experts have expressed alarm over the chasm between carbon targets and the deep cuts necessary to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.

Current national plans would lead to 2.4 degrees of heating, according to analysis this week by Climate Action Tracker. To close that gap, the new draft text “requests” governments issue new 2030 climate plans by the end of 2022; a shift from Wednesday’s draft text which used the verb “urges”.

In response to reports from negotiations that finance pledges to poorer nations made in 2009 will not be met even with an extended deadline, Global Witness’s head of forest policy Veronica Oakeshott said: “Nothing illustrates the failure of governments to align their policies and actions with the challenges of the climate crisis better than the contrast between the gaping hole in finance for the most affected countries and the massive financial flows going towards deforestation and fossil fuels.”

Improvements

There is, nonetheless, improvements in the potential agreement on adaptation to help developing countries become more climate resilient in the face of inevitable impacts from global heating.

In addition, nature’s role in reaching the 1.5-degree goal has been recognised in the UNFCCC draft text. It “recognises the interlinked global crises of climate change and biodiversity loss” and “emphasises the importance of protecting, conserving and restoring nature and ecosystems to achieve the Paris Agreement climate goal”.

It also recognises the importance of protecting, conserving and restoring nature to deliver crucial services that reduce vulnerability to climate impacts and support sustainable livelihoods.

The text also “recognises the need to strengthen ocean-based action to tackle climate change” – an issue that had been pushed by Ireland at Cop26.

“It’s significant that the new text recognises nature’s role in climate mitigation and adaptation because without nature, we can’t meet the 1.5-degree Paris Agreement target,” said John Verdieck, director of international climate policy at The Nature Conservancy.

He added: “While the cover note lacks some of the forward-looking ambition we’d like to see, over the last two weeks an unprecedented level of commitments has been made to protect, restore and manage forests, plus recognise the role of indigenous people in this process.”

At this point there was a need to strengthen ongoing texts for finance, transparency and markets “to help governments deliver on Cop26 promises and ensure a liveable Earth system”, Mr Verdieck suggested.