(Glasgow) Bitter discussions continued at COP26 on Friday on a new draft final declaration calling for accelerating the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, helping poor countries in the face of disasters and limiting fossil fuels.
A few hours before the scheduled end at 6 p.m. GMT (1 p.m. Eastern time) of this global climate conference, considered crucial to get the fight against climate change back on track, the British Presidency has published this new “Draft”, already the result of long negotiations.
The publication of the new text has not put an end to the disputes, and the discussions should lead COP26 to extensions.
” We’ll get there. We’re not there yet, ”said US envoy John Kerry, arriving for a new negotiating session at the end of the morning.
Simon Steele, Grenada’s climate minister, was “cautiously optimistic”, while stressing that as it stood the text represented the “strict minimum”.
Emissions reduction is seen as a top priority as the world continues to head for “catastrophic” warming of + 2.7 ° C, according to the UN, despite new commitments for the 2030 deadline announced just before and since the start of the COP.
The Paris agreement sets the objective of containing the rise in temperature “well below” of +2 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, if possible +1.5 ° C.
The British presidency has also made the slogan “Keep 1.5 alive” its mantra, while the signs of the effects of climate change, droughts, floods, heat waves, with their attendant damage and victims multiply.
The text therefore calls on member states to raise their emission reduction commitments more regularly than provided for in the Paris agreement, starting in 2022.
But this revision must be made “taking into account the particular national circumstances”, opening the way to adjustments for certain countries, which did not appear in the first version.
Not online
This maintenance has been welcomed by several observers, even if the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) noted for example that it “is still not in line with (the objective of) +1.5 ° C”.
Symbolically, the text also retains a reference to an exit from the financing of fossil fuels and the use of coal. A remarkable first, since fossil fuels are not even mentioned in the Paris agreement, the keystone of climate diplomacy.
But the wording is softer compared to the first version which called for “accelerating the exit from coal and fossil fuel financing”. Countries are now encouraged to limit “inefficient” fossil fuel funding and to accelerate the phase out of the use of coal “without carbon capture”, which is still in its infancy.
On the very controversial questions of aid to poor countries, the new version of the text still calls on rich countries to fulfill, and even go beyond, their broken promise to provide 100 billion dollars a year. And to double by 2025 the aid specifically devoted to adaptation to the effects of climate change, while it is the financing of emission reductions which captures 75% of the total.
Poor countries consider this distribution particularly “unfair”, since they represent an insignificant share of global emissions, but are already suffering the most severe consequences of global warming.
Righting an injustice
They therefore also insist that the financing take into account the “losses and damages” that they are already suffering. On this point, the text proposes to speed up the implementation of measures already planned and the creation of a “technical assistance mechanism”.
But without giving any figures, while the estimates of needs for all envelopes of the groups of less developed countries now range from 750 billion to 1.3 trillion dollars per year.
The new text elicited mixed reactions.
The reference to fossil fuels is “very important and historic,” said Bob Ward of the London School of Economics.
But Greenpeace denounced the “considerable weakening” of this reference, while encouraging the British presidency to “fight tooth and nail to preserve the most ambitious elements” of the text.
For Harjeet Singh, of the Climate Action Network, which brings together more than 1,500 NGOs from around the world, “rich countries see climate finance as a handout or a favor to get developing countries to accept bad decisions. But we are talking about saving lives, repairing an injustice to build a secure future for all ”.