A moment of truth: Leaders inch towards agreement at climate talks on the banks of the Clyde
World leaders were urged to deliver on their Cop26 promises last night as they inched towards agreement at the critical climate summit in Scotland.
The talks, described as the world’s most important meeting, were due to finish on Friday but were continuing in Glasgow last night as negotiators attempted to drive an agreement over the line.
Consensus appeared to be forming on the two critical issues at the United Nations summit: financial aid for developing nations damaged by climate change and renewed emissions targets helping limit global warming to 1.5°C.
The Cop26 president Alok Sharma made a lastditch appeal to almost 200 nations gathered at the SEC venue, telling them: “This is the moment of truth.”
However, disagreement over promises to phase out fossil fuels with challenges from India, Iran, China and South Africa threatening to push the talks into a second extra day. Experts pointed to some progress in key areas but activists remained unimpressed, claiming too many promises have been broken to put faith in any new deal.
Countries will be asked to revisit and strengthen 2030 emissions targets by the end of next year, a demand designed to keep within reach of the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Scientists warn anything above that risks far more extreme weather events and natural disasters.
A third draft agreement was published yesterday morning after overnight talks and, it was hoped, would provide the foundation for a final joint agreement to be delivered yesterday.
However, talks were continuing at the summit attended by 25,000 delegates last night and seemed likely to continue overnight. Yesterday, experts said progress in the latest draft agreement was encouraging. Professor Chris Stark,
chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, and a former Scottish Government director of energy and climate change, said: “The key thing about this process is each year now we need to ratchet the ambition so we see emissions reductions coming down in a sharp curve and possibly 1.5˚C is on the table.”
He said: “I’m feeling quite good about the way it’s been brought together. Language about fossil fuel financing and phasing out coal is still in there. Language on returning to the table to make those 2030 targets stronger next year is still in there. Over the next 12 months we will need to see those stronger commitments for 2030. If we do that, there is a path in play to something below 2˚C, and possibly hanging on by a thread to the 1.5˚C outcome.”
Helen Mountford, vicepresident of climate and economics for global research organisation World Resources Institute, said it was what countries actually do over the next 12 months which will determine if the conference has been a success.
She said: “It’s really about seeing if we can put in place processes and systems going forward to actually close the gaps that remain. To some extent, we’ll know whether it succeeded when we come back next year and we see what countries and others did when they went home. What they do on Monday morning is what’s going to count.”
But Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was unconvinced, warning on Twitter: “Now as #Cop26 is coming to an end, beware of a tsunami of greenwashing and media spin to somehow frame the outcome as ‘good’, ‘progress’, ‘hopeful’ or ‘a step in the right direction’.
And Vanessa Perez-Cirera, deputy lead on climate and energy at WWF International, said the goal of keeping 1.5˚C alive was hanging by a thread and that developed nations had to take the lead on ratcheting up their nationally determined contributions by next year.
Yesterday, as nearly 200 countries met to discuss the final wording, it emerged India was resisting plans to phase out fossil fuel use, with their negotiator stating each country would arrive at their own emissions targets at their own pace. China and South Africa are understood to share their concerns over a blanket approach on coal, threatening to scupper the key element of the deal.
Sharma told delegates he understood the concerns of various parties, but warned against upsetting the current “delicate balance”. He said: “There is a fine and fragile green thread which is weaved around this balanced package. And I do think that if any of us tug, it will unravel all too easily.”
Delegates returned for the formal final plenary session yesterday evening, where they were to hammer out a final agreement.
Seve Paeniu, from Pacific nation Tuvalu, told delegates of the effects of climate change on his island home and said Cop26 had delivered a “strong message of hope”, adding: “What is left now is for us to deliver on that promise.”
He received warm applause as he held up a photograph of his grandchildren, adding: “I will
now be able to tell them Glasgow has made a promise to secure them their future. That will be the best ever Christmas gift.”
The third draft agreement retained the unprecedented mention of phasing out coal as well as a call for tougher carbon-cutting targets next year. Iran joined India, China and South Africa in criticising proposals to phase out coal and end fossil fuel subsidies, with its delegate telling the meeting: “We need to use fossil fuels for economic development. We request you modify this paragraph.”
Other developing countries remained angered there was no firm commitment on financial help from richer nations for the damage climate change has already caused.
The original commitment to double funding going to developing countries to help them adapt to climate change has been watered down to “urge” countries to do this. It emphasises the need to significantly increase support for developing countries beyond $100 billion per year.
A former chief negotiator for the G77 coalition of developing countries believes nowhere near enough money has been pledged by wealthy nations to make tackling climate change a success, saying current proposals were “like giving a cancer patient an aspirin”.
Lumumba Di-Aping, a highly experienced South Sudanese diplomat, said Cop26 had been more about dressed-up protectionism than a co-ordinated effort to save the planet from the effects of global warming. He said: “The science and the finance is available to make a real difference but we are still lacking the leadership and political will to carry this through,” he said. “$100bn is only a small fraction of the UK’s GDP for instance, and this is for 150 countries.”
The draft also includes measures to establish a dialogue between countries and organisations to discuss the arrangements for the funding activities to minimise and address loss and damage – but does not involve rich countries paying compensation for climate harm they have caused. Issues still being debated yesterday were understood to include references to coal, which also affects exporters such as
Australia, next year’s revisiting of climate plans, which key players including China could object to, and US concerns over financing deals over loss and damage.
Scientists have warned keeping temperature rises to 1.5˚C requires global emissions to be cut by 45% by the end of this decade and to zero overall by mid-century.
Former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP said: “That language on fossil fuels absolutely has to be in there and has to be absolutely clear it refers to all fossil fuels and we’re getting rid of all fossil fuel subsidies. There will be a big fight over that. If that language on fossil fuels isn’t in the text it will be a serious blow.”
Greenpeace International executive director Jennifer Morgan said: “The key line about fossil fuels is weak and compromised, but it’s a breakthrough, it’s a bridgehead and we have to fight like hell to keep it in there and have it strengthened.”
While politicians and experts gave the proposals a cautious welcome, activists and campaigners criticised the conference and said plans to mitigate climate change effects did not go nearly far enough.
Professor Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development, said: “The language on loss and damage has gone backwards from the text the day before. It seems the Cop26 presidency has been nobbled behind closed doors by the US.”
Asad Rehman, of campaign umbrella group Cop26 Coalition, criticised the conference as a whole, saying: “The needs of poorer countries have been kicked to the curb, in favour of keeping the hugely overrepresented fossil fuel lobbyists happy. Developing countries, already overwhelmed by Covid, inequality and a spiralling debt crisis, desperately needed huge increases in financial support to deal with the impacts of climate change, and compensation for the damage already done. Yet rich countries flatly refused to put hard cash on the table.”
Last week the summit was surprised by a joint announcement by US and China – whose president had failed to attend – pledging to boost climate co-operation. The world’s two biggest CO2 emitters said they would “recall their firm commitment to work together” to achieve the 1.5˚C temperature goal set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.