After an opening with 120 heads of state, who spoke in the last two days, COP26 will continue until the end of next week with diplomatic negotiations. These conversations seek to regulate the last technical details of the Paris Agreement, dealing with transparency, financing and the carbon market.
The beginning of the COP was dubbed by the participants as an ad fair. Brazil has joined the two most prominent ones — the global methane commitment and the declaration on forests, announced with a fund that pledges $19.2 billion for conservation.
The focus of the pledges at this COP is on financing climate action, with numbers that impressed conference attendees due to the scale of the investments and the definition of shorter deadlines for action — some of them targeting 2025 or until 2030.
“To achieve the commitments made in the Paris Agreement and maintain the [objetivo de] 1.5ºC alive, we need developed countries to hand over public funding,” declared the president of COP-26 and Cabinet Minister of the British Government, Alok Sharma.
“That’s why we made funding a key at COP26 and why the commitments made by countries and the private sector are so welcome,” he added.
On Wednesday, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero Emissions was announced, a coalition of 450 financial institutions, representing US$ 120 trillion, aimed at accelerating the decarbonization of the global economy.
Japan and Australia have pledged to double funding from the Adaptation Fund, which has also received offers from Norway —which is expected to triple its contributions—, the United States, Switzerland and Canada.
The profusion of announcements about new coalitions, climate goals and pledges of funding heated up the conference and signals to negotiators that there is a political willingness to make commitments.
The formula had been used at COP21, which led to the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015: instead of reaching the conclusion of the conference, leaders were invited to give a political “push” to the opening, encouraging diplomats to seek solutions to the agreements .
The observers of the negotiations heard by the sheet noticed the objectivity of the diplomats since Monday (1). In part of the meetings, the negotiators skipped the discussions about the procedure of these meetings, which used to take the first days of the event, and went straight to the drafts of the text.
On this Wednesday (3), three items of the text of article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which provides for the carbon market and other financing mechanisms, were published and had the agreement of the countries. The theme had been the main challenge of the last COP and was blocked by Brazil, but the country has shown itself willing to give in in its historic position.
Itamaraty had been advocating at the COPs that a new carbon market preserve conditions agreed in the Kyoto Protocol, which would benefit Brazilian projects prepared at the time.
Signed in 1997, the protocol only provided targets for developed countries. As developing countries, such as Brazil, also have targets in the Paris Agreement, the rules need to contemplate a basic adjustment: if the country sells its climate results in a carbon market, it cannot count them in its own accountability .
Brazil is the only UN country against the adjustment and, for this reason, it has been accused of threatening the environmental integrity of the Paris Agreement.
According to observers at the negotiations, the country would be willing to give up this position, but would still like, in exchange, to gain the right to negotiate projects based on the Kyoto rules, proposing a transition phase for the global carbon market. The proposal meets resistance from other emerging economies.
Despite the political announcements conveying enthusiasm, the negotiation of financing rules still runs into technical difficulties.
The transparency rules, which define the format, metrics and deadlines for accountability of climate goals, are also moving forward with a new text, but still incorporating dozens of divergent positions and leaving ample possibilities on the table.
There is a division of positions between advocating flexible reporting standards or a rigid framework for tracking and comparing global progress on climate goals.
The rhythms of accountability and revision of targets also generate divergences, with countries advocating five-year or ten-year cycles. Or even mixed proposals, which would make it possible to plan climate goals looking to the next decade, but stopping midway through the review.
The debate over the technical details promises to drag on until the end of COP26, on the 12th, with negotiators under pressure to show the world the feasibility of the Paris Agreement.
The journalist traveled at the invitation of Instituto Clima e Sociedade.
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