In the COP26 extension, climate negotiators are struggling to reach an agreement Climate News

COP26 negotiators were due to meet again on Saturday after failing to reach an agreement on a climate crisis to sustain the rising temperature that threatens the planet.

The draft of the final agreement of the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference was released on Friday morning, which was supposed to be the last day of the two-week conference.

But the latest agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) continues to address financial aid problems for the poorest nations in rich countries with coal and other fossil fuels.

Alok Sharma, president of COP26, at a conference in Glasgow, Scotland, called on negotiators from nearly 200 countries to come together and reach an agreement.

“We’ve come a long way in the last two weeks and now we need that last injection of that spirit that can be done in this COP, so we are overcoming this shared effort,” Sharma said.

The draft agreement includes a condition for countries to set tougher climate commitments next year, with much deeper targets than current targets and scientists say are needed in this decade to prevent climate change catastrophe.

The talks were “at a standstill,” and the U.S., with the support of the European Union, was delaying talks, said Christmas Forest and Climate Change Minister Lee White.

White said there was a lack of trust between rich and poor nations in terms of payments made by rich countries to the poor because of the damage caused by the worst effects of global warming – funds to adapt to climate change and carbon markets.

COP26 began on October 31, amid shocking warnings from leaders, activists and scientists that it was not doing enough to reduce global warming.

The agreement was to be fixed at 18:00 local time (18:00 GMT) on Friday.

“The culture of negotiation is not to make tough commitments until we get into additional meeting entries, as we have done now,” said Alden Meyer, a longtime climate interview supervisor at E3G’s European think tank.

“But the UK presidency will still have to leave a lot of people upset to get the full deal we need from Glasgow.”

Saudi Arabia, considered the world’s second-largest oil producer and considered one of the nations most resistant to strong words about fossil fuels, said the final draft is “doable”.

Saudi envoy Ayman Shasly said the country will guard against changes that “upset the balance” of the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The final agreement will have to be approved unanimously by the nearly 200 countries that have signed the Paris agreement.

Reducing fossil fuel subsidies

The president’s draft proposals for Friday morning’s meeting called on countries to accelerate “continued coal power and inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”.

The previous draft was stronger on Wednesday, urging countries to “speed up the phasing out of subsidies for coal and fossil fuels.”

U.S. Climate Representative John Kerry said Washington supported the current writing.

“We’re not” removing coal, he told climate diplomats. But, he said, “These subsidies have to go.”

A protester has a poster outside the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow on November 12, 2021 with the slogan “Stop Climate Crime”. [Andy Buchanan/AFP]

The response was confusing on the part of activists and observers, adding that the words “constantly” and “efficient” were significant.

Richie Merzian, a former climate negotiator who runs Australia’s climate and energy program, told the Institute of Australia think tank that the additional notes are “enough to run a coal train from there”.

countries like Australia and India, the world’s third-largest emitter, has faced calls for coal removal soon.

Scientists agree that the use of fossil fuels must be completed as soon as possible in order to maintain a rise in global temperature of 1.5 C.

Reforming some crucial texts of the draft agreement on coal and fossil fuels is “very unfortunate,” Danish Environment Minister Dan Jorgensen told Al Jazeera.

“There were some very strong words out there, like fossil fuels and coal … they’re being irrigated,” he said.

Funding issues

Another serious issue is the issue of financial assistance to poor countries to help them cope with climate change and help them adapt.

Wealthy nations did not give them $ 100 billion a year by 2020, as agreed, causing great anger from developing countries that were in talks.

The latest draft reflects these concerns, expressing “deep remorse” for not meeting the $ 100 billion goal and calling for rich countries to increase funding.

The UN aims to “mitigate” additions that fall far short of what countries really need, to help poor countries with their ecological transition and “adaptation” to help manage extreme climate events.

The new draft says that by 2025, rich countries should double their funding for adaptation to current levels, a step forward from the previous version that did not set a date or basis.

Of the nearly $ 80 billion spent on climate finance for poor countries in 2019, only a quarter was for adaptation.

A more contentious party, known as “loss and damage,” would compensate for the damage it has already suffered as a result of global warming, even though this is beyond $ 100 billion and some wealthy countries do not accept the claim.

Update the emissions target

Updating emissions targets is another thorny issue as nations have been asked to return with new emissions reduction targets that they had to present before the Glasgow talks.

The draft calls on nations to present another tougher target by the end of 2022, but some nations, such as Saudi Arabia, are rejecting the proposal, said David Waskow of the World Resources Institute.

In 2015 in Paris, it was debated whether the targets should be updated every five or 10 years, so updating from Glasgow to a year is a big deal, said former EU negotiator Kelley Kizzier, vice president of the Global Climate Fund for the Environment.