COP26 strikes hard-fought deal but UN says 'not enough'

Nearly 200 nations came together Saturday on a global deal to combat climate change after two weeks of painful negotiation, but fell short of what science says is needed to contain dangerous temperature rises.

Rich countries stood accused of failing at the COP26 summit in Glasgow to deliver much-needed finance to vulnerable states at risk of drought, rising seas, fire and storms.

Britain's COP26 president Alok Sharma rounded up the marathon negotiations telling delegates: "It is now decision time. And the choices you are set to make are vitally important."

But China and India insisted that language on fossil fuels be weakened in the final summit decision text.

As the final deal was clinched, a tearful Sharma said "I apologise for the way this process has unfolded. I am deeply sorry," before banging down his gavel.

Delegates entered the talks charged with keeping the 2015 Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature rises to 1.5-2C degrees within reach.

They were also tasked with finding the funding for nations most at risk of climate-related droughts, floods and storms supercharged by rising seas.

Observers said the agreement fell far short of what is needed to avert dangerous warming and help countries adapt or recoup damages from the disasters already unfurling globally.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres welcomed the deal, but stressed it was "not enough".

"We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe," he added.

Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg said the talks had achieved nothing but "blah, blah, blah", echoing earlier comments.

Laurence Tubiana, the architect of the Paris deal, told AFP that "COP has failed to provide immediate assistance for people suffering now."

But a statement from the European Commission said the deal had "kept the Paris targets alive".

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose government hosted the talks, insisted the deal was a "big step forward" even if much more work needed to be done.

- Survival -

The final text urged nations to accelerate efforts to "phase down" unfiltered coal and "phase out" inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.

Large emitters China and India had opposed the mention of the polluting fuels, and the language in the final text was significantly more nuanced than earlier drafts.

The deal also called on all countries to accelerate their emissions cuts by submitting new national plans by 2022, three years earlier than agreed in Paris.

But after resistance from rich nations led by the United States and EU, the text omitted any reference to a specific finance facility for the loss and damage climate change has already caused in the developing world.

It instead only promised future "dialogue" on the subject.

"For some loss and damage may be the beginning of conversation and dialogue," said Shauna Aminath, the Maldives environment minister. "But for us this is a matter of survival."

Although host Britain said it wanted COP26 to keep the 1.5C temperature cap in reach, a UN scientific assessment last week said countries' latest climate plans put Earth on course to heat 2.7C.

The text noted "with deep regret" that wealthy nations had also failed to stump up a separate annual sum of $100 billion they promised over a decade ago. It urged countries to pay up "urgently and through 2025".

It also promised to double finance to help developing countries adapt to rising temperatures by the same date.

- 1.5C on life support -

But developing nations said it was unfair for the summit to produce an unbalanced agreement heavily weighted toward "mitigation" -- how economies can ditch fossil fuels and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

They wanted specific instruction on how they can meet the bill of decarbonising while also adapting to the natural disasters supercharged by global warming.

"We were told that COP26 was the last best chance to keep 1.5C alive but it's been placed on life support," Amanda Mukwashi, CEO of Christian Aid.

"Rich nations have kicked the can down the road and with it the promise of the urgent climate action people on the frontline of this crisis need."

The two weeks in Glasgow saw a number of high-profile announcements from world leaders, such as a commitment to slash methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

It also witnessed mass protests against what activists said was a dangerous lack of urgency.

Teresa Anderson, climate policy coordinator at ActionAid International, said COP26 was "an insult to the millions of people whose lives are being torn apart by the climate crisis."

COP26 outcome hinged on handful of key issues
Glasgow (AFP) Nov 13, 2021 - Fourteen days of gritty negotiations by 20,000 diplomats from nearly 200 countries -- and the hopes of salvaging a deal at COP26 -- boiled down to cash, coal, compensation and the willingness to speed up the drawdown of fossil fuels.

Here's a breakdown of the main sticking points that got unpicked for a deal to get hammered through.

- Calling out 'Fossil fuels' -

The Paris Agreement that enjoined the world's nations to reduce planet-warming greenhouse emissions does not contain the words "coal", "oil", "natural gas" or "fossil fuels".

This may seem odd, given that global warming is overwhelmingly caused by burning hydrocarbons, but it helps explain why the first-ever mention of fossil fuels in a document flowing from the 2015 treaty has been described as "historic" and "precedent-setting".

An initial draft of what would become the final text called on "parties to accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuel".

But under pressure from India, China, South Africa and Saudi Arabia, that clarion call got progressively watered down to: "accelerate efforts towards phase-out of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies."

"Unabated" refers to emissions from coal-fired power plants that are not syphoned off to prevent them from entering the atmosphere.

And in a dramatic, last-minute change agreed across huddles in the final plenary, "phase-out" of unabated coal became a "phase-down".

- Loss and Damage -

The call for action in the 1992 UN climate convention rests on two pillars: mitigation to cut emissions, and adaptation to help poor and vulnerable countries prepare for climate change in the future.

But since that bedrock treaty was crafted, climate impacts have become a here-and-now reality, with yearly economic cost measured in the billions.

Facing that reality, the UN climate forum bolted on the concept of "loss and damage" to cover climate-driven catastrophes for which it is too late or impossible to prepare for.

"When you don't do enough mitigation you get more into the adaptation space, and when you don't do enough adaptation you have to deal with loss and damage," Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, Fiji's minister for economy and climate Change, told AFP.

The loss and damage mechanism introduced in 2013, however, has remained largely an empty shell.

Developing countries drew a line in the sand in Glasgow, demanding concrete steps.

But their hope for the establishment of a funded "facility" was shot down, with the United States in particular concerned that such a step could put it and other rich countries on the hook for billions, if not trillions, in damages.

A compromise, laid out in the text, would be the establishment of a yearly "dialogue", running through to 2024, to "discuss the arrangement for the funding of activities".

- Ramping up climate ambition -

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement nations agreed to update their emissions-cutting plans every five years.

The first set of revisions came due at the end of 2020, but most were not submitted until this year because of the Covid pandemic.

But with emissions still on the rise, and warnings from scientists that the world has only this decade to drastically cut carbon pollution, calls have grown for additional updates before the next scheduled reporting round in 2025.

The new text "requests parties to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022."

In UN jargon, "requests" is close to "must do", and many countries -- China, India, Saudi Arabia among them -- were not keen on accelerating the timetable.

- Carbon credit loopholes -

One of the thorniest debates during recent UN climate talks has been Article 6 of the Paris agreement, which deals with cross-border trade of carbon reduction credits.

The issue has dogged climate negotiations for years, with fears that if set up poorly, it would mean countries could trade dubious emissions reductions that cover up their failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the source.

Laurence Tubiana, who helped craft the 2015 Paris climate treaty as France's chief negotiator, said that the new text had "closed some of the egregious loopholes, such as double counting".

"But it is not enough to stop bad faith companies and countries gaming the system," she told AFP, adding that a watchdog would need to monitor the implementation of the markets.

Unfortunately, Tubiana said, a provision to use a levy on some of the transactions to help the poorest countries adapt to climate change "got axed".

World needs trillions to face climate threat: draft UN report
Glasgow (AFP) Nov 12, 2021
Helping vulnerable nations cope with the multiplier effect of climate change on droughts, flooding, heatwaves and tropical mega-storms will require trillions of dollars, not the billions now on the table at COP26, a draft UN report obtained by AFP reveals. The failure of rich countries to make good on a promise to deliver $100 billion a year for vulnerable nations has become a flashpoint at the UN climate talks in Glasgow, entering their final hours on Friday. But the real cost for allowing the ... read more