As the COP26 negotiations draw to a close, negotiators from the nearly 200 countries at the climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, strive to unlock key negotiating points.
But an arm wrestling between rich countries, large emerging emitters and developing countries risks losing crucial points, such as financing poor nations, eliminating fossil fuels and instruments to provide transparency to resources used to mitigate climate change.
The objective of the climate summit is to make commitments to fulfill the Paris Agreement target of limiting Earth’s warming to 1.5°C by 2100.
A draft of the final agreement was released this Wednesday (10) and calls for countries to present more ambitious targets for cutting emissions by the end of 2022, in addition to their long-term strategies to achieve so-called climate neutrality — when all emissions they are offset by reforestation or carbon capture technology from the atmosphere.
Another point in the text says that it will be necessary for rich countries to contribute more than the $100 billion (BRL 550 billion) a year they had promised to pay developing countries between 2020 and 2025. But the draft agreement does not establish a new cipher. And so far the $100 billion promised per year has not been fulfilled by developed countries.
Furthermore, the preliminary draft agreement establishes the need to accelerate the elimination of the use of coal and fossil fuels. But no date or deadline for this to occur is contained in the text. Trading continues until Friday (12) and may enter through the weekend.
The expectation is that major oil producers such as Saudi Arabia will press to remove any reference to fossil fuel subsidy cuts from the text.
But what parts of this report are of interest to Brazil? And which points of dispute should heat up negotiations until the end of the week?
Control how much each rich country is paying
The main demand from Brazil and other developing countries is to receive more compensation and funding from rich nations for actions to combat global warming and adapt to climate change.
Some regions of the world already live with prolonged droughts and temperatures that reach 50°C. And the hardest hit are precisely the poorest countries. Rich countries had promised in 2009 funding of US$ 100 billion a year to developing countries for environmental projects between 2020 and 2025. But this amount was not reached in 2020 and will not be fulfilled in 2021.
The big problem, according to Brazilian negotiators and environmentalists, is that there is a lack of mechanisms on where the money can be deposited and which payments are part of climate change mitigation. There is also no monitoring of how much each rich country is investing.
Because of this lack of control, environmentalists say rich countries have even put “on account” of those $100 billion in interest-bearing loans to poor nations, and money that has historically been transferred as part of past poverty-fighting commitments.
During COP25, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina are trying to convince the other negotiators to create a permanent committee to monitor how much each rich country is giving developing nations to fight climate change. It would be a way of assessing whether or not the $100 billion target is being met — and which countries are lagging behind on their promises.
But, according to BBC News Brasil learned from Brazilian negotiators, the European Union is blocking this proposal. The European bloc does not want, for example, to present the contributions of each country, but the total donated by the members of the group.
According to negotiators and observers participating in the negotiations, rich countries want to establish mechanisms to control whether emissions reduction targets are being met. But they don’t accept the same monitoring for financial promises.
Figure of the money that will be paid from 2025
Another big point of impasse is the amount that rich countries will have to pay developing nations from 2025, when the payment period of the US$ 100 billion a year ends.
The draft COP26 text recognizes that more funding is needed by developing countries beyond the $100 billion promised per year from 2020 to 2025. But the document does not set the figure that will replace that $100 billion from 2025.
Brazil and other emerging countries wanted the climate summit to end with a defined amount of funding for four years from now. An alternative would be to at least set a date for negotiations on this figure, but the preliminary text of the agreement does not provide for this either.
“If there is no more clarity about the financing mechanisms, the responsibility for climate control will have fallen more to developing countries that have already signed the forest agreement,” a Brazilian negotiator told BBC News Brasil.
Brazil, Indonesia and Congo, countries with the largest tropical forests, signed during COP26, together with more than one hundred countries, a parallel agreement that provides for zero deforestation in the world by 2030.
Disposal of Coal and Fossil Fuels
While the countries that possess the largest forests have committed to actions to leave their forests standing, the biggest emitters of polluting gases have not committed to a date to reduce or eliminate the use of coal and fossil fuels.
A Brazilian negotiator criticized the fact that the text did not contain a deadline for “energy transition”. That is, for countries that currently use fossil fuels as an energy source to transform their energy matrix by adopting sustainable alternatives, such as solar energy.
Several rich countries, such as Germany, still have fossil fuels as their main source of energy. Large emerging countries such as China and India are also heavily dependent on a polluting energy matrix.
The preliminary text of the agreement speaks of “accelerating the elimination of coal and fossil fuel subsidies”, but does not set dates or targets. For one of the Brazilian negotiators, it was a step forward to include this phrase in the document, given the strong opposition from Saudi Arabia, which is a large oil producer.
But another negotiator from Brazil says there could have been more ambition, at least establishing the need for a rapid transition from dirty to renewable energy matrices.
Negotiations continue
Negotiations for a final agreement will continue through Friday and could even extend into the weekend. So far, Brazil has adhered to two parallel agreements: the one on forests, mentioned above, and the other that provides for a 30% reduction in methane emissions, one of the main greenhouse gases.
This commitment on methane affects Brazilian meat production, as cattle emit this gas during gastric fermentation and 17% of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions come from livestock.
But industry leaders say it is possible to achieve the goal with sustainable pasture management, supplementation of feed for oxen and reducing the life of animals until slaughter. Large producers such as JBS, Marfrig and Minerva Foods have already communicated that it is possible to meet and even expand the goal.
“In the livestock part, the most efficient way is to improve the life cycle. With the reduction of the life cycle of animals, there is less methane emissions. And in the control of deforestation, we monitor the oxen that come from suppliers,” he said to BBC News Brasil the president of Minerva Foods, Fernando Queiroz.
The Brazilian government has adopted the discourse that, from now on, it is up to the rich countries to expand their commitments.
“Brazil, as a key player in the negotiations, made important moves during the first few days and we announced even more ambitious climate targets,” declared Environment Minister Joaquim Leite, in a speech at the COP26 plenary this Wednesday (10).
“It is important that developed countries recognize the financial emergency and mobilize the necessary resources to achieve the desired goals at this conference. The US$ 100 billion target has not been met! And this amount is no longer sufficient for the world to build a new one green economy with a responsible transition,” added the minister.
In turn, the technical team of Brazilian negotiators says it will continue to press for more clarity in the format of financing from rich countries to poor nations. The main point in this regard is the creation of a monitoring committee to control whether the financial promises will be fulfilled.
Brazil’s greatest difficulty lies in recovering the historic weight it has always had in climate negotiations, after the deterioration of the country’s image over the past two years. In an interview with BBC News Brasil, Ambassador Paulino Franco de Carvalho Neto, who heads the negotiations, acknowledged the serious increases in deforestation and emissions, and stated that there is an attempt to “correct” the problem.
“We recognize that we have to face the challenge of illegal deforestation. What we want to do now is to correct this. Take a very serious look, involve resources in combating deforestation, increase resources, whether national or international.”
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