Almost 200 countries approved this Saturday in the COP26 accelerate the fight against climate change and outlining the bases for future financing, without guaranteeing, however, the objective of limiting the increase in world temperature to + 1.5ºC.
The Glasgow Climate Pact proposes that by the end of 2022, Member States present new national commitments to cut Emissions of greenhouse gases, three years ahead of schedule, although “taking into account different national circumstances.”
The approval of the agreement was marred by last-minute opposition from India and China to a paragraph on the need to eliminate dependence on coal, and to end fossil fuel subsidies.
With 24 hours of delay on the agenda, the COP26 approved a text that opens the way to formal consultations to create financing funds and to subsequently study the damages and losses of the most vulnerable countries.
The document does not contain exact dates or amounts. “What this text is trying to do is plug holes and start a process,” especially on the issue of finance for adaptation to the effects of climate change, that is, to prepare for what is to come, explained Helen Mountford, from the World Resources Institute.
“It is shy, it is weak and the goal of 1.5ºC is barely alive, but it sends a signal that the era of coal is ending. And that is important,” reacted Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace.
The world continues to be on the verge of a “climate catastrophe”, warned this Saturday the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, after the approval of the Glasgow Pact.
The COP26 de Glasgow it achieved “steps forward that are welcome, but they are not enough,” the secretary general said in a statement.
With nails and teeth
Developing countries, the hardest hit by global warming, fought tooth and nail to the end to make progress on money, with a modest result.
COP decisions are reached by consensus, and Glasgow was no exception, with exhaustive negotiations until the last minute in the plenary assembly room itself, with delegates standing, document in hand.
US special envoy John Kerry, his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua, European Commission Vice President Frans Timmermans came and went, hopping from group to group, over a text that was eventually grudgingly accepted, albeit with harsh criticism from India.
Controversial aspects
The pact “urges developed countries to at least double their collective contributions to developing country adaptation, based on 2019 levels, by 2025.”
The multilateral banks will have to collaborate in the task, and the text also calls for “innovative policies” to attract private capital.
But rich countries have not been able to regularize the 100 billion dollars a year that vulnerable countries were supposed to receive since 2020. And that figure was just a base.
The text recognizes and “deeply regrets” this situation, which urgently needs to be remedied by 2025.
Developing countries want the money they are going to receive from now on to be, broadly speaking, shared equally in mitigating climate change (reducing greenhouse gas emissions) and adapting to what is to come ( for example, through dams, dikes on the coasts, etc.).
“For the first time a funding target for adaptation was agreed,” congratulated Gabriela Bucher from Oxfam.
Scientists’ alarmism
Compensation for damages and losses is a particularly controversial chapter, since it concerns States, large multinationals (such as oil companies) and insurance companies.
The pact “decides to establish the Glasgow Dialogue (…) to discuss preparations to finance activities in order to avoid, minimize and remedy damages and losses.” That dialogue should culminate in 2024.
Finally, in the debates on the fossil fuels, which have never been explicitly denounced in the official documents of these conferences, the end was controversial.
Indian Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav argued that less industrialized nations, with little historical responsibility for global warming, are “entitled to their fair share of the global carbon budget and are entitled to the responsible use of fossil fuels.”
How can developing countries be expected to make promises to eliminate coal and fossil fuel subsidies? “He said.
At the proposal of India, the text finally mentions the need to end “inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”, but again, paying attention to “particular national circumstances”.
From the 2015 Paris Agreement, alarmism has grown and the world is heading for a “catastrophic” situation if drastic measures are not taken, the scientists insist.
The objective set in Paris six years ago was that the increase in global average temperature does not reach +2 ºC, and ideally it should be at a maximum of 1.5 ºC.
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Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx