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By Kate Abnett
GLASGOW (Reuters) – British hosts of the UN’s COP26 Climate Conference in Glasgow have proposed that countries plan to increase their greenhouse gas emissions next year in a draft political decision to be negotiated over the next three days.
The proposal underscores the concern of climate experts and activists that there is a huge gap between current national commitments and the rapid emission reductions needed to prevent the world from deteriorating in a full-blown climate crisis.
The first draft of the political decision, released by the United Nations on Wednesday morning, calls on countries to “review and strengthen the 2030 targets in nationally determined contributions, as needed to meet the temperature target of the Paris Agreement by the end of 2022.”
This would simply force countries to set tougher climate targets next year – a key demand from countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
The countries agreed to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and try to limit it to 1.5 C.
Scientists say exceeding the 1.5 C threshold would result in significantly worse sea level rise, floods, droughts, forest fires and storms than those already suffering, with some impacts being irreversible.
The draft also called on countries to step up their efforts to stop burning coal and remove subsidies for fossil fuels, with carbon, oil and gas generating carbon as a direct target, a major driver of climate change caused by humans.
He did not set a fixed date for their phasing out, but the importance of fossil fuels could lead to a setback for large energy producers.
Helen Mountford, vice president of the World Resources Institute, said the explicit reference to coal, oil and gas is an advance on previous climate summits. “The real problem will be whether it can be stored there.”
Diplomats will close the branches on Wednesday to try to agree on a definitive text in time for the end of Friday’s two-week conference. It will not be binding, but it will have the political weight of the nearly 200 countries that signed the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The Greenpeace environmental campaign team condemned the draft as an inappropriate response to the climate crisis, and “considered it a polite request for countries to perhaps do more next year.”
WHO PAYS?
The Climate Action Tracker (CAT) research team said on Tuesday that all national commitments made so far to reduce greenhouse gases by 2030, if fulfilled, would allow the Earth’s temperature to rise by 2.4 C from pre-industrial levels by 2100 – but significant. a small step from the current 2.7C trajectory.
The draft document reminds countries that in order to stop global warming beyond the critical threshold of 1.5C, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced by 45% by 2030, compared to 2010 levels, in order to completely halt their rise by 2050.
According to the national climate commitments submitted to the United Nations so far, emissions will be 14% above 2010 levels by 2030.
The draft calls on countries to submit improved commitments next year, but does not confirm whether this will become an annual condition, leaving the decision on future revisions to Egypt, which will host the next UN climate conference.
The text also avoids guarantees for the poorest countries that rich countries, which are largely responsible for climate change emissions, will be given more money to help tackle climate change and reduce CO2 emissions.
The draft “calls” on developed countries to “urgently increase” aid to help countries adapt to climate impacts, and says more funding is needed in the form of subsidies than loans that burden poor nations with more debt. But he does not receive a new plan to give that money.
Wealthy countries failed to meet their commitment in 2009 to provide $ 100,000 billion a year in climate finance to poorer countries, and now expect to meet it three years late. This broken promise has damaged confidence and prompted poor nations to seek tougher rules for future funding.
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