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COP26 draft deal calls on countries to make new climate pledges next year
GLASGOW — A proposed deal for the COP26 climate talks laments countries’ failure to align their targets with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and calls on them to submit new pledges in 2022.
The text was released Wednesday morning. It kicks off a fierce three-day debate between the almost 200 countries represented in Scotland, before the conference is scheduled to end Friday. The deal as drafted has no guarantee of passing and is likely to face stiff opposition.
The draft deal “resolves to pursue efforts” to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, the lower limit set out in the Paris Agreement.
Echoing calls from vulnerable countries, the U.K. presidency of the talks drafted a deal that “urges Parties to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their nationally determined contributions, as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022.”
The draft notes scientific advice that emissions were set to rise to 13.7 percent above 2010 levels by 2030, when they needed to fall by 45 percent to achieve the 1.5-degree goal. It proposes an annual ministerial meeting starting in 2022 on how to close that gap.
A deal in Glasgow will require a balance between cutting emissions and boosting financial flows that help poorer countries adapt to climate change, cope with the impacts and reduce their own emissions.
The draft asks rich countries “to at least double their collective provision of climate finance for adaptation.” But there is still placeholder text to define a new global goal on adaptation.
The finance section doesn’t commit rich countries to any new funding beyond 2025, although it does leave a placeholder for that discussion.
The draft also calls for countries to “accelerate the phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels,” and to cut non-CO2 greenhouse gases such as methane and restore forests. If passed it would be the first time a U.N. climate deal has specifically mentioned coal.
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