Climate finance on agenda as UN talks enter final week
UN talks enter final stretch with major division on issues like climate financing
GLASGOW: United Nations climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, entered their final week on Monday with countries still worlds apart on key issues including how rapidly the world curbs carbon emissions and how to help nations already impacted by global heating.
After a week of headline announcements from host Britain on ending deforestation and phasing out coal, experts say the underlying COP26 negotiations have barely progressed.
Countries are in Glasgow to work out how to implement the Paris Agreement’s goals of limiting temperature rises to between 1.5 and 2 degrees Celsius.
And while recent announcements mean they have inched closer, many disputes remain unresolved.
These include ratcheting up ambition on national carbon reduction plans, providing a long-promised $100 billion annually to developing nations and rules governing carbon markets.
Climate finance On Monday, Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, speaking a few feet away from former US president Barack Obama, said rich nations have fallen short of their commitment to provide $100 billion annually by 2020 to poor countries.
The US is especially delinquent, he says.
We’ve been told to “suck it up” and wait, Bainimarama said, adding that the “USA is woefully short” on finance.
Immediately before, Obama told the audience that “all of us have work to do”.
“All of us have sacrifices to make,” Obama said. “But those of us who live in big, wealthy nations - those of us who helped to precipitate the problem - we have an added burden to make sure we are working with, and helping, and assisting those who are less responsible” for but “are more vulnerable to this crisis”.
Governments will push for agreement on Monday on how to help the most vulnerable deal with global warming and compensate for damage already done, a test of whether developing and rich nations can end years of deadlock over cash for climate change.
A study released by charity Christian Aid on Monday highlighted the devastating economic impact climate change could inflict on the most vulnerable countries without sharp cuts to climate-heating emissions and measures to adapt to warming already baked in.
Economies in such countries would still grow in the second half of this century, the study predicted. But if global temperatures rose 2.9°C - a hike current climate policies could cause - the poorest nations and small island states could end up with average GDP nearly 20% lower than without climate change by 2050, and 64% lower by 2100.
Even if global warming were limited to 1.5°C, as set out in the 2015 Paris deal, those countries could still face an average GDP reduction of about 13% by 2050 and 33% by 2100, the study predicted. Africa would take the biggest hit, researchers said.