After two weeks of announcements, alliances and intense negotiations between countries, the 26th session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) was still in full swing in Glasgow on the evening of Friday 12 November, leaving the possibility of a prolongation over the weekend.
Discussions between country delegations were still ongoing at the time of going to press, following the publication of a new draft decision by the UK Presidency of the COP in the morning.
“Time is running out, but it’s not too late. So let’s get cracking”, said the European Commission’s Executive Vice-President in charge of the Green Deal, Frans Timmermans, in his speech to the plenary session of the UN conference.
Uncertainty around Article 6
The Vice President further called on the parties at COP26 to “conclude rules that ensure environmental integrity of international carbon markets that increase, and do not undermine, the ambition of NDCs” (‘nationally determined contributions’).
This concerns Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which, due to disagreements between countries, was left suspended two years ago after the COP25 in Madrid.
On this point, the Vice-President said he is optimistic, believing that the compromise proposed by the UK Presidency is “a better option than what was on the table in Madrid”.
The challenge is to avoid the same emission reduction being counted twice when trading carbon credits on international markets (both by the country that bought the credit and by the country where the emission reduction took place).
“We cannot leave Glasgow with an Article 6 Agreement that is littered with loopholes that undermine real climate action”, warned the NGO Greenpeace
Towards a reference to the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies?
Another issue dividing the parties at COP26 is the inclusion of a reference to the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies in the final text. This idea is strongly opposed by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
While the first draft decisions, released on Wednesday, called on parties to “accelerate the phase-out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies” (see EUROPE 12830/4), many were concerned that the reference would not survive the negotiations.
While this is still present in the new draft decisions, the wording has been changed.
The text now calls on parties to rapidly expand clean electricity generation and accelerate the phase-out of coal-fired electricity and “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies. A change which, according to some observers, substantially weakens the text.
Asked by EUROPE whether the reference would remain in the text after the COP, MEP Bas Eickhout (Greens/EFA, Netherlands) stressed the importance for the EU to build a broad coalition, especially with developing countries, to get the support of the US, and thus push China to agree to keep the reference.
“The US needs to be persuaded and then all the pressure is on China to move. Then parties like Saudi Arabia and Russia cannot really block”, he told us.
He also criticized the lack of a date for the elimination of coal and fossil fuel subsidies.
Lack of climate financing
Another challenge of this COP is to increase climate financing.
While developing countries pledged to mobilise $100 billion per year before 2020 and until 2025 to help developing countries address climate change, the pledged amount remains insufficient (it is only expected to be reached in 2023, according to pre-COP forecasts - (see EUROPE 12822/9)), despite new pledges announced at the COP26 (see EUROPE 12829/5).
“Only reaching that objective by 2023 is frankly disappointing”, said Frans Timmermans, calling on developed countries to increase their contributions and, if possible, to double them.
He also recommended being “creative”. He said there was a need to broaden the “donor base” and “to look at the role played by global financial institutions” which “were built for a world of 1945” and “are no longer fit for the world of today”.
According to Bas Eickhout, the source of this lack of funding is easily identifiable: “Let’s be very honest: we have a problem with the US on climate finance and I think Europe should be a bit more clear about that. We are always very polite with the United States whereas they are clearly underperforming on finance.
See the draft UK Presidency decisions dated Friday morning: https://bit.ly/3naeE9S (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)