London, Thanassis Gavos
The latest draft of the text of the decisions of the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, released this morning by the British Presidency, maintains the call to national governments to submit renewed and strengthened plans to reduce emissions by the end of next year. pollutants by 2030.
In fact, the latest text states that the countries are “asked” to speed up the submission of new plans for the reduction of pollutants, while in the first plan the verb “encouraged” was used. Lawyers note that the new wording is more binding.
Maintaining this call in the final COP26 agreement is considered important, as there were countries that did not want to engage in new discussions on the so-called “National Defined Contributions (NDCs)” to reduce pollution by 2022.
According to the Paris Agreement timetable, such a discussion on the NDCs should resume in 2025. Officials and analysts monitoring developments at the Glasgow Climate Conference, however, say the best outcome at this time would be commit countries to return to the negotiating table within the next year.
The commitments announced so far, e.g. for the protection of forests, the reduction of methane emissions, the gradual decoupling of major countries from coal and the individual cooperation or financing agreements of developing countries, are planet at 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The new draft text of the decisions also maintains the call for increased funding from developed to developing countries to tackle and adapt to climate change.
In relation to the first draft agreement, however, there is a difference in wording regarding the need to phase out coal use and finance the use of fossil fuels (oil and gas).
The first text called on countries to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies”, while the latest text called on all governments to “accelerate the phasing out of energy (s) coal reduction and inefficient grants”. .
The new wording is criticized by some observers as less possible, while others believe that it does not change the substance significantly.
The addition of the designation “undiminished” in terms of coal use refers mainly to the obligation to capture pollutants produced by the burning of fossil fuels. The term “inefficient” introduced in the text in terms of financing the use of fossil fuels is attributed to the willingness of some countries to maintain fuel subsidies for the poorer strata. The new wording could, however, allow some governments to continue to fund fossil fuel use by big interests.
In any case, what analysts point out is that if the new wording is retained in the final text of the agreement, it will be the first time that there will be explicit references to the need to phase out the use of fossil fuels at a corresponding United Nations conference.
According to the program, the conference ends tonight at 6 pm Glasgow, however the participants do not rule out the continuation of the consultations over the weekend, something that has been done in previous similar climate conferences.
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