The president of the COP26 “deeply sorry”: what does the “Glasgow pact” provide for the climate? – LCI

48 hours late and after two weeks of trying negotiations, the representatives of 200 nations present at COP26 gave birth to an agreement on Saturday evening. This “Glasgow pact” is intended to speed up the fight against global warming, but without ensuring that it is contained at 1.5 ° C or responding to requests for assistance from poor countries. Many already consider this text to be a failure.

Representatives struggled to agree on key bottlenecks, such as phasing out coal, fossil fuel subsidies and financial support for low-income countries. The final adoption of the text finally came after last minute changes introduced by China and India on the issue of fossil fuels. Upheavals concerning which the president of the COP26 said in a moved voice and tears in his eyes “deeply sorry”. He had earlier estimated that the agreement “inaugurates a decade of growing ambition” in terms of climate.

India on Saturday proposed a last-minute change to the term used for fossil fuels in the pact, from “phase-out” coal to a “gradual reduction”. “Developing countries have the right to their fair share of the global carbon budget and to the responsible use of fossil fuels”, said the Indian representative. “How can we expect developing countries to make promises on phasing out coal and fossil fuel subsidies?”, he also questioned.

Faced with the insistence of India, but also of China, the opposing countries finally gave in. The final version calls for “intensify efforts towards the reduction of coal without (CO2) capture systems and to get out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”.

On the critical point of limiting temperatures, while the planet is according to the UN on a trajectory “catastrophic” of 2.7 ° C warming compared to the pre-industrial era, the text calls on member states to raise their reduction commitments more regularly than provided for in the Paris agreement, starting in 2022. But with the possibility arrangements for “special national circumstances”, a point which aroused criticism from NGOs on the real ambitions of the text.

The compromise found does not, moreover, ensure compliance with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, limiting global warming. “well below” 2 ° C and if possible at 1.5 ° C. It does, however, offer prospects for the British presidency to show success in its objective of seeing Glasgow “keep 1.5 alive”. Experts regularly warn that “every tenth of a degree counts” while disasters linked to climate change are already increasing: floods, droughts or heat waves, with their attendant damage and victims.

The explosive issue of aid to poor countries, which at one time seemed able to derail the negotiations, did not find a resolution.

Scared by the still unfulfilled promise of the richest to increase their climate aid in the South to 100 billion dollars per year from 2020, the poor countries, the least responsible for global warming but on the front line in the face of its impacts, were asking for funding. specific to “loss and damage “ that they are already undergoing. But developed countries, foremost the United States, which fears possible legal consequences, strongly opposed it. Reluctantly, the poor countries gave in, accepting a continuation of the dialogue so as not to lose the progress on the fight against warming, the effects of which already threaten them directly. While saying “extremely disappointed”.

If the head of the British government, Boris Johnson, estimated this Saturday evening that the Pact was “a big step forward”, it is, for Teresa Anderson, of the NGO ActionAid International, only a “an insult to the millions of people whose lives are being ravaged by the climate crisis”.

The face of the global youth climate movement, Greta Thunberg, was no more tender, denouncing on Twitter “a tsunami of greenwashing” to try to pass this Glasgow Pact as a “a step in the right direction”.

“It’s soft, it’s weak, and the 1.5 ° C target is barely alive, but there is a signal that the Coal Age is over. And that’s important.”, nevertheless rejoiced Jennifer Morgan, patron of Greenpeace International. The European Union also remains positive, believing that the COP26 “keeps the goals of the Paris agreement alive”.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations called the agreement “compromise” full of “contradictions”. “The climate catastrophe is still knocking on the door”, he remarked.