COP26 ends with an agreement criticized to speed up the fight against global warming

The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, COP26, ended on Saturday, November 13 with the adoption of an agreement to accelerate the fight against global warming, but without guaranteeing to meet the objective of it. contain at 1.5 ° C nor respond to requests for assistance from poor countries.

The UN boss, Antonio Guterres, himself pointed out the weaknesses of this “Glasgow Pact”, warning that “the climate catastrophe is still knocking on the door”, the “political will” having failed to overcome the “contradictions “between countries.

The text was adopted after two weeks of trying negotiations, like the last-minute, less restrictive changes introduced on the issue of fossil fuels at the request of China and India.

Before endorsing with a hammer blow the adoption, the British president of this 26^e world climate conference, Alok Sharma, said in a moved voice and tears in his eyes “deeply sorry” for this outcome. He had earlier estimated that the agreement “inaugurates a decade of growing ambition” in the climate.

The Prime Minister of the host country, Boris Johnson, who had traveled twice to Glasgow to try to facilitate the discussions, for his part considered that this result constituted “a big step forward” but that there was “still a lot to do “.

“We have always known that Glasgow was not the finish line,” commented US envoy John Kerry.

On the critical point of limiting temperatures, while the planet is according to the UN on a “catastrophic” trajectory of warming of 2.7 ° C compared to the pre-industrial era, the text calls on member states to increase their reduction commitments more regularly than provided for in the Paris agreement, starting in 2022.

But with the possibility of adjustments for “particular national circumstances”, a point which has aroused criticism from NGOs on the real ambitions of the text.

The compromise found does not, moreover, ensure compliance with the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement: to limit warming to “well below” 2 ° C and if possible to 1.5 ° C.

But it offers prospects for the British presidency to show success in its goal 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.

“It’s soft”

“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,” challenged Jennifer Morgan, boss of Greenpeace International.

The text also contains a mention, unprecedented at this level, of fossil fuels, the main responsible for global warming and which are not even mentioned in the Paris agreement.

The wording was attenuated over the versions and until the last minute before the adoption in plenary, at the insistence of China and India in particular. The final version calls for “stepping up efforts towards reducing coal without (CO2) capture systems and phasing out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies”. Here again, there is a mention of “special national circumstances”.

A “bitter pill to swallow”, but accepted “for the common good”, regretted the representative of Liechtenstein, summing up many interventions by delegates.

After a failure at the last two COPs, it has also succeeded in finalizing the rules for using the Paris Agreement, in particular on the functioning of the carbon markets supposed to help reduce emissions.

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 per year from 2020 onwards, 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 the “loss and damage” they are already suffering.

“Blah blah blah”

But developed countries, foremost the United States, which fears possible legal consequences, strongly opposed it.

And 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”.

“It is an insult to the millions of people whose lives are being ravaged by the climate crisis,” commented Teresa Anderson of the NGO ActionAid International.

The face of the global youth climate movement, Greta Thunberg, was more concise, once again calling COP26 a “blah blah blah”. “The real work continues outside of these rooms. And we’ll never, ever give up,” she promised on Twitter.

With AFP