Difficult negotiations continue at COP26

(Glasgow) COP26 was in a suspenseful finale on Saturday, with questions of aid to poor countries and phasing out fossil fuels threatening to derail the conclusion of a deal to curb global warming.

A new draft final declaration of the world climate conference published by the British presidency did not lead to the hoped-for progress and a new plenary session at midday promised to be stormy.

After a summit welcoming more than 120 heads of state, announcements of all kinds on forests or methane and two weeks of negotiations carried out day and night, London still hoped to conclude the COP26 on Saturday by “keeping alive” the objective. more ambitious of the Paris Agreement, limit warming to 1.5 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era.

While the world is still, according to the UN, on the “catastrophic” trajectory of a warming of + 2.7 ° C, the new text preserves progress in terms of emission reductions and on fossil fuels, main sources of greenhouse gases.

“Chat room”

But it does not bring progress on the issue at the heart of the tensions of these last days of negotiations, the financial envelope to help the poorest countries – the least responsible for climate change but on the front line in the face of its impacts.

Developing countries had notably requested a specific mechanism to take into account “loss and damage”, that is to say damage already caused by the devastating impacts of increasing storms, droughts and heat waves.

But for Mohamed Adow of the NGO Power Shift Africa, “the text has been weakened” compared to a previous version published Thursday, redacted from a reference already considered minimal to a “technical” support system. “The rich countries are pushing towards a system which would lead to a forum of incessant chatter” with the passivity of the British presidency, he denounced.

According to several observers and sources close to the negotiations, the rich countries, and in particular the United States, which fear possible legal consequences, blocked this proposal. The European Union for its part is reluctant to the idea of ​​a specific mechanism, but would on the other hand be open to the idea of ​​a timetable.

Guinean representative Amadou Sebory Touré, head of the G77 + China negotiating group (more than 100 developing and emerging countries), insisted on Friday that such a mechanism be included in the text, recalling that the proposal emanated “from the whole of the developing world ”, including the major emerging countries.

Another very controversial point, the unprecedented mention in a text at this level of fossil fuels, the main responsible for global warming and which are not even mentioned in the Paris Agreement, is preserved in this third version of the draft declaration, to the chagrin of producing countries.

Arrangements

But from version to version, the scope of the text has been reduced. He now calls on member countries to “accelerate efforts towards phasing out coal-fired energy without capture systems (of CO₂) and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies ”.

In particular, the previous declaration did not include the terms “efforts” and “ineffectiveness”.

“We will have to fight like crazy to keep this in the text while a handful of countries are trying to remove it,” commented the director of Greenpeace international, Jennifer Morgan.

The discussions are complicated by the mistrust of the poor countries, since the rich countries have still not kept their promise made in 2009 to increase their climate aid in the South to 100 billion per year from 2020.

Poor countries also accuse developed countries of wanting to force them to do more to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions when they are not responsible for climate change.

On greenhouse gas emissions, the new text unchanged the call to Member States to increase their reduction commitments more regularly than provided for in the Paris Agreement, starting in 2022.

But with the possibility of adjustments for “particular national circumstances”, point added Friday during the negotiations and which had provoked criticism of the NGOs on the real ambition of the countries to limit the rise in temperatures.