Along with news that the Glasgow climate talks generated more greenhouse gasses than any previous COP, reactions to the success of the two-week meeting are mixed less than one day after the conference ended.
While measured optimism about the Glasgow Pact was forthcoming from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and US Climate Envoy John Kerry, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the planet was "hanging by a thread". "We are still knocking on the door of climate catastrophe... it is time to go into emergency mode - or our chance of reaching net zero will itself be zero."
The Glasgow Pact highlights:
- Counties are to submit more ambitious pledges annually, aggressively cutting carbon to take us off a 2.3C trajectory
- Developed countries are to double the amount of climate financing to help developing countries shift to green energy and adapt to climate change by 2025
- Fossil fuels were mentioned in the final document for the very first time in the 26 years of negotiations
- Coal and subsidies to fossil fuel companies are to be “phased down”
"There is still a huge amount more to do in the coming years,” said UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson “But today's agreement is a big step forward and, critically, we have the first ever international agreement to phase down coal and a roadmap to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees," he said.
He expressed hope that we would "look back on COP26 in Glasgow as the beginning of the end of climate change.”
As the conference came to an end, delegates, at the insistence of India and China, agreed to replace “phase out” coal to “phase down” coal, causing COP26 President Alok Sharma to say he was "deeply sorry" for how events had unfolded.
Swiss environment minister Simonetta Sommaruga expressed “profound disappointment” over the watered down language with regard to coal and fuel subsidies. "This will not bring us closer to 1.5C, but make it more difficult to reach it."
"They changed a word but they can't change the signal coming out of this COP - that the era of coal is ending," said Greenpeace international executive director Jennifer Morgan.
Loss and Damage
The negotiators punted on the topic of loss and damage, which was seen as critical by the Global South and small island states at the start of the negotiations.
"We recognise the presidency's efforts to try and create a space to find common ground, said Lia Nicholson, representing small island states. “The final landing zone, however, is not even close to capturing what we had hoped."
Shauna Aminath, environment minister for the low-lying Maldives told the BBC: "We have 98 months to halve global emissions. The difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees is a death sentence for us."
Rachel Cleetus, policy Director and Lead Economist in the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists said Australia was also blocking progress. CNN has reached out to the delegation.
"A proposed Glasgow Loss and Damage Facility to channel new and additional funds for loss and damage failed to materialize after being blocked by richer nations including the United States, Australia and the European Union," Cleetus said.
"The final COP26 decision is overwhelmingly compromised by countries that have contributed most greatly to the climate crisis and once again denies justice for climate vulnerable developing countries." www.cnn.com/...
Article 6
Article 6 provides the global guidelines on carbon markets, detailing how countries can cooperate to increase emision reductions and create more ambitious nationally determined contributions (NDCs). One of the most complex parts of the UNFCCC framework, Article 6 includes “cross-border compliance carbon markets, described as “ITMOs” (Internationally-Transferred Mitigation Outcomes).”
The final agreement resolves sticky issues associated with paragraphs 2 and 4 of the article. Paragraph 2 covers bilateral carbon trades, while paragraph 4 covers the centralized hub that replaces the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
To avoid double-counting of emission reductions, the Paris Agreement calls for rules on applying “corresponding adjustments” of national carbon inventories when one country uses ITMOs to reduce its carbon footprint. This can happen at the government level, as when Switzerland purchased ITMOS from Peru, but is more likely to happen at the corporate level, when a company in one country purchases ITMOs from abroad to meet compliance criteria at home. www.ecosystemmarketplace.com/...
"After six years of negotiations, the rules allowing countries to trade carbon credits with each other, known as Article 6.2, have been agreed with the exception of some operational elements," Roth said.
Other Accomplishments
The Glasgow talks also yielded results in other environmental arenas. Countries agreed to address methane emissions within the next ten years and more than 100 countries, including Brazil, agreed to stop deforestation by 2030.
Sunday, Nov 14, 2021 · 6:20:30 PM +00:00
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boatsie
The Guardian reports: It could have been worse, but our leaders failed us at Cop26. That’s the truth of it
The UN climate process must be reformed to become more nimble. It is slow and measured and requires consensus and compromise. This is usually admirable, but it works against the scale and speed of action needed in a global emergency like this when millions of lives are at stake and every year of inaction counts.
Soon we may have to accept that even when faced with flood, fire and famine, some countries will never act in the wider interest and will hinder the progress of others.
So, short of locking leaders in a room and not letting them out until they have agreed something better, the only way 1.5C can be achieved must now be for those countries who want progress to work outside the UN process. That China and the US will meet next week is possibly the most positive development of the meeting.
Sunday, Nov 14, 2021 · 6:24:03 PM +00:00
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boatsie
It’s a fairytale that world governments will fix our climate crisis. It’s up to us — Bill McKibben in The Guardian
It was inspiring to watch activists – especially young people and those from the global south – as this Glasgow Cop limped towards its mushy end. They were on top of every twist in the text, and they won significant concessions from the big polluting countries. At the time of writing, it looks as if the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels will be mentioned in a Cop document for the first time, and that there will be more money for nations of the global south to “adapt” to the climate crisis. The activists’ anger echoed through the halls, and was heard in whatever parts of the world were listening. To the extent that this Cop worked at all, it’s a tribute to their perseverance and creativity.
Sunday, Nov 14, 2021 · 6:33:04 PM +00:00
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boatsie
After the failure of Cop26, there’s only one last hope for our survival (Monbiot)
Now it’s a straight fight for survival. The Glasgow Climate Pact, for all its restrained and diplomatic language, looks like a suicide pact. After so many squandered years of denial, distraction and delay, it’s too late for incremental change. A fair chance of preventing more than 1.5C of heating means cutting greenhouse gas emissions by about 7% every year: faster than they fell in 2020, at the height of the pandemic.
What we needed at the Cop26 climate conference was a decision to burn no more fossil fuels after 2030. Instead, powerful governments sought a compromise between our prospects of survival and the interests of the fossil fuel industry. But there was no room for compromise. Without massive and immediate change, we face the possibility of cascading environmental collapse, as Earth systems pass critical thresholds and flip into new and hostile states.