Draft deal at UN climate talks calls for end to coal use

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Governments are considering calling for a global end to coal use, according to a draft released Wednesday of the final document expected at the U.N. climate talks.

The early version of the document circulating at the negotiations in Glasgow, Scotland, also expresses "alarm and concern" about how much Earth has already warmed and urges countries to cut carbon dioxide emissions by about half by 2030. Pledges so far from governments don't add up to that frequently stated goal.

Some nations, especially those whose very existence is threatened by climate change, worried that the draft didn't go far enough in providing more money to poor countries for adapting to global warming and paying for the irreversible losses from it.

"'Urging,' 'calling,' 'encouraging,' and 'inviting' is not the decisive language that this moment calls for," Aubrey Webson, Antigua and Barbuda's U.N. ambassador, said in a statement, referring to language in the draft.

With time running out in the climate summit, a clear message had to be sent, he added: "To our children, and the most vulnerable communities, that we hear you and we are taking this seriously."

In one significant move, countries would urge one another to "accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels" in the draft, though it has no explicit reference to ending the use of oil and gas. There has been a big push among developed nations to shut down coal-fired power plants, which are a major source of heat-trapping gases, but the fuel remains a critical and cheap source of electricity for countries like China and India.

The future of coal is also a hotbutton issue in the United States, where a spat among Democrats has held up one of President Joe Biden's signature climate bills.

While the language about moving away from coal is a first and important, the lack of a date when countries will do so limits the pledge's effectiveness, said Greenpeace International director Jennifer Morgan, a longtime climate talks observer.

"This isn't the plan to solve the climate emergency. This won't give the kids on the streets the confidence that they'll need," Morgan said.

The draft doesn't yet include full agreements on the three major goals that the U.N. set going into the negotiations — and may disappoint poorer nations because of a lack of solid financial commitments from richer ones. The goals are: for rich nations to give poorer ones $100 billion a year in climate aid, to ensure that half of that money goes to adapting to worsening global warming, and the pledge to slash emissions that is mentioned.

The draft does provide insight, however, into the issues that need to be resolved in the last few days of the conference, which is scheduled to end Friday but may push past that deadline.