Sharma’s tears amid the fear that all could be lost over a single word
In the end, two years of shuttle diplomacy, painstakingly conducted during a global pandemic, were nearly thrown off at the last hour. The historic climate deal secured at Cop26 was thrown into “real jeopardy” by a last-minute deal between India and China to object to calls to phase out coal power and fossil fuel subsidies, Alok Sharma said yesterday.
The text was not even supposed to be there. The sentence in the original draft deal calling for countries “to accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels” had been added in by UK negotiators who believed it would be swiftly rejected.
Never before had the direct mention of fossil fuels or coal made it into an agreement at the end of the annual climate summit.
But in each subsequent draft, the words “phase-out”, “coal” and “fossil fuels” remained, though the phrasing was gradually softened.
That it survived is a reflection of the changing climate that this Cop26 was conducted in, as countries start tackling head-on the causes of catastrophic global warming.
By the time it came to the final draft, it was clear that a consensus was growing for the words to stay, which the UK could not ignore, despite rising objections from two of the most powerful polluters at the summit.
As a final meeting was meant to get under way to discuss the deal, frantic negotiating “huddles” continued around the plenary hall, as delegates ignored the pleas of Mr Sharma, the Cop president, to take their seats.
Eventually, he adjourned the meeting, and head negotiators from India, China, the EU and the United States moved their conversation to a side room, where it became clear that Beijing was willing to blow the whole deal at the last hour if it did not get a concession on the language.
“I did feel at that point the whole thing, two years of work, was in jeopardy,” Mr Sharma said yesterday.
“My first thought was obviously that we had put together something quite historic to support developing countries. And if we didn’t get a deal over the line, that would all be lost.”
It soon became clear that the US was willing to support a change to the text, softening the language from a “phaseout” of unabated coal to a “phasedown”, to appease India and China.
Two days earlier John Kerry, the US climate envoy, and Xie Zhenhua, his Chinese counterpart, had heralded a new joint agreement between the two countries, which came after 30 meetings between two men who have a long, friendly working relationship.
Meanwhile, Mr Sharma was sending messages between the room which contained the four big players and the other delegates to ensure they weren’t blindsided when the change came.
Mr Sharma, a former international development secretary, has made a point during these talks to try to represent the voices of many of the small island and developing nations most vulnerable to climate change.
“I was actually incredibly frustrated and just really, really concerned for what this would mean,” he said yesterday. “I’ve gone round the world, literally, making it clear that in this presidency role the UK will be neutral brokers, and I think people have understood that.
“I think one of the reasons that we got this over the line is because of the trust we had built up over two years among those countries.”
Although the UK had the power to change the draft text before it was presented to the rest of the delegates, Mr Sharma insisted that India and China be put in the spotlight, by making their objections known at the public plenary.
Even though they knew what was coming, many of the other delegates lodged impassioned objections to the last-minute changes to the text.
Their anger at the four-way deal between the biggest polluters was compounded by the fact that growing calls from more than 100 countries for developed nations to provide “loss and damage” funds for the devastation they are already feeling as a result of climate
‘Trying to keep consensus among almost 200 countries is a near impossible task. But we did it’
change had been largely rebuffed.
Among those to object was Tina Stiege, the charismatic envoy for the Marshall Islands, a low-lying Pacific nation under threat from rising seas.
Ms Stiege said she felt “profound disappointment” at the change, and accepted it only because, she said, her country was relying on a deal for its survival.
“She was bitterly hurt by what had happened,” Mr Sharma said yesterday. “I was really keen throughout these last few years to run a totally transparent process.”
It was this backroom nature of the deal that prompted a tearful apology, in a rare moment of open emotion from “no drama Sharma” as he has referred to himself.
“Trust is so fragile in these negotiations, and trying to keep consensus among almost 200 countries is a near impossible task. But we did it,” he said yesterday.
Boris Johnson insisted yesterday that the change in wording made no material difference to the intent of the pledge, which he said heralded the “death knell” for coal, for which he insisted there was no longer an economic case.
If that is the case, China may have overplayed its hand. It rarely states its case so boldly as it did on Saturday night, when it became clear that it was in opposition to many developing nations who are most vulnerable to climate change and for whom Beijing often professes to speak.
Mr Sharma is the first to acknowledge that the result of Saturday’s tense negotiations is “a fragile victory”.
Yet even the Government’s fiercest critics yesterday praised Mr Sharma’s handling of the talks and there is now support for the former business secretary getting a Cabinet post, possibly in a new “net zero” ministry.
Ed Miliband, the shadow energy secretary, yesterday said he had “nothing but praise for Alok Sharma ... and the job he did as Cop president”.