The Glasgow summit aims for countries to tighten their climate plans next year

The presidency of the Glasgow climate summit, which is held by the United Kingdom as the host country, is looking for a way to urge countries to tighten their emission cut plans immediately. In the first draft of the final declaration that this presidency has prepared, nations are urged to review and tighten their plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2022. All the signatories of the Paris Agreement must present cut programs for this decade of their emissions to achieve the objective that the increase in temperature remains between 1.5 and 2 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels. But current plans would lead to 2.4 to 2.7 degrees of warming, according to the latest analyzes of commitments.

The Paris Agreement established a system of upward revision of the cut plans. The first review was done between last year and this year. The next one would be scheduled for 2025, according to what was established in the text of that agreement. But given the urgency to act and the increasing pressure from the scientific world and society, the way in which to urge a review for next year, without waiting for 2025, is now being debated at the COP26 in Glasgow.

The British presidency of COP26 has included in the first draft of the final declaration of the summit that call for review by the end of 2022. This is the starting point of the negotiation, and the text may change widely in the next few hours. In that draft it is also openly admitted that the direction is not correct, since applying the current national plans for 2030, global emissions would be more than 10% higher than 2010 levels. In addition, it is explicitly stated that the objective must be to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 45% by 2030, also compared to 2010. This drop in emissions is what is needed to try to keep the increase in global temperature from exceeding 1.5 degrees (warming is already at 1.1). If that direct reference to 45% is maintained in the final declaration, it could be considered a small success, sources from the negotiation maintain. “We must achieve ambitious emission reductions in this decade”, valued the Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, who applauded the inclusion in the draft of the final declaration of the reference to the need to present new plans cut in 2022.

However, the executive director of Greenpeace International, Jennifer Morgan, has considered that the draft cannot be seen as “a plan to solve the climate crisis”, but only contains a request so that “countries, perhaps, can do more next year”. “This is not enough and negotiators should not even think about leaving this city until they have reached an agreement at the height of the moment,” Morgan added in a statement.

Fossil fuels

That final declaration also makes reference to fossil fuels. Countries are being asked to accelerate “the phase-out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies”. The same sources consulted believe that it is difficult to maintain that explicit mention of fossil fuels. The final text must be agreed with all the countries. Some states, such as Saudi Arabia, have already requested that there be no “biases” against any “particular energy source”, in clear reference to the first draft prepared by the British presidency.

In theory, the summit should end on Friday. During the next few hours, the representatives of the almost 200 countries that are part of the international negotiations on climate change must agree on that final declaration. But, in addition, they will have to close some fringes related to the Paris Agreement, such as the development of article 6 of that pact, which refers to carbon markets. Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, attempts have been made to close this issue without success. Sources of the negotiation explain that it is stuck again. The fear of many countries, such as the members of the European Union, is that this issue will become a sieve and that some countries will be allowed to trade with emission rights that they themselves account for in their gas cut programs greenhouse.

Also on the negotiating table at this summit is climate finance. Developed countries pledged that from 2020 they would mobilize 100,000 million dollars each year towards developing countries. That money should be used by these nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and protect themselves against the impacts of warming. But the goal of 100,000 million will not be reached until 2023, according to a report prepared by Germany, Canada and the OECD. This breach has rarefied the negotiations in Glasgow which, as usual, could take longer than Friday, the official date set for the closure.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson, has come to Glasgow this Wednesday to try to promote the negotiations due to the risk that they will be blocked. Johnson has acknowledged that things have gotten “difficult” but not “impossible”. And he has warned that the goal of this climate summit is still to be able to keep alive the objective of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. This implies that plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions have to be doubled for this decade. For this, it is necessary that the national programs that are now on the table be updated as soon as possible. That is to say, that next year the countries toughen their plans, as the British presidency of this COP26 has proposed in its draft declaration.

Source: The Country