The tough negotiations at COP26, the capital for the fight against global warming, will continue at least until Saturday. The Parties will try to find compromises on aid to poor countries and fossil fuels.
On Friday morning, the UK’s presidency of this climate conference released a second draft final declaration, but the afternoon plenary session highlighted the still significant differences among the 200 or so countries that have signed the Accord. of Paris in 2016. The negotiations continued without surprise into the night, beyond the official program, which ended at 6 pm local time. They were still in progress at the time of this writing.
A new text will be published on Saturday morning, before a new plenary session aimed at collecting the various positions in the morning, said in a message the president of the COP26, Alok Sharma, who now hopes to end these two weeks of marathon in the day of Saturday.
Failure at this COP would further endanger the objective of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to “well below” 2 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, if possible 1, 5 ° C.
The world is still heading towards a “catastrophic” warming of + 2.7 ° C, according to the UN, despite the new commitments for the 2030 deadline announced just before and since the start of the summit.
One of the most disputed points: the financial envelope intended to help the poorest countries – the least responsible for climate change, but on the front line in the face of its repercussions -, to reduce their emissions and to prepare for storms and heat waves and increasing droughts.
“Put money on the table to help developing countries make the necessary changes […] This is what must happen in the coming hours, ”Prime Minister Boris Johnson insisted on the BBC on Friday afternoon.
“We will not be able to have everything at the COP, but we can start,” he added, seeming less optimistic than before the start of this conference to achieve its proclaimed goal of “keeping 1.5 ° C alive. “.
“Broken trust”
In 2009, the countries of the North had promised to increase from 2020 their climate aid paid to the South to 100 billion per year. But the promise is still not kept, which sharpens the resentment of the developing countries in a context of health crisis which adds to their burden.
The draft declaration calls on rich countries to fulfill and even exceed their broken promise. And to double by 2025 the aid specially devoted to adaptation to the effects of climate change, when it is the financing of the reduction of emissions which captures 75% of the total.
But these commitments are not enough, insist the developing countries. “Our confidence has been shattered”, notably underlined the representative of Kenya.
The poorest, who account for an insignificant share of global emissions, also insist that financing take into account the “loss and damage” they are already suffering at an increasing rate.
But on this point, the draft declaration just proposes to speed up the implementation of measures already planned, without quantified targets over time. “We are extremely disappointed” that the proposal for a particular device was not retained, launched the Guinean representative on behalf of the G77 + China group (more than 100 developing and emerging countries).
Several NGOs accused the European Union (EU) and the United States of having blocked this request, the Climate Action Network group seeing in it a risk of “putting the COP26 in danger”. “Leaving COP26 with a decent result depends largely on the willingness of the US and the EU to provide support to developing countries,” commented Mohamed Adow, of the Power Shift Africa think tank.
The Vice-President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, however, said he was certain of “finding a solution to help vulnerable countries cope with the destruction and damage already caused by the climate crisis”.
Estimates of the funding that groups of less developed countries need now range from $ 750 billion to $ 1.3 trillion per year.
Pyromaniacs
Another burning issue at the heart of the negotiations: fossil fuels, the main cause of global warming. While the Paris Agreement did not mention fossil fuels, the latest draft declaration provides for the inclusion – softened compared to the first version – of the exit from their funding.
A mention supported in particular by the EU and the United States. The American envoy John Kerry even lambasted the massive subsidies to these energies, which are “the very definition of madness”.
More generally, in an attempt to limit warming, the provisional text of the British Presidency calls on member states to raise their emission reduction commitments more regularly than provided for in the Paris Agreement, starting in 2022. Even whether the possibility of adjustments for “special national circumstances” has been added.
“Our question to the big emitters and the big economies here in Glasgow is, how do you want you to be remembered? »Said Gabriela Bucher, from the NGO Oxfam. “Like those who let the arsonists burn the planet down or like those who brought the world to safety?” “