Edit: Article updated Saturday, November 13 after the publication of a third version of the final declaration
At COP26 in Glasgow
As expected, COP26 is playing extra time, like the majority of these UN climate summits before it. But, in theory, the curtain fell on Friday evening on the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, after two weeks intense negotiations between the 197 member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Unfcc).
This COP26 was presented as the most important since that of Paris – COP21 – in 2015. Firstly for a calendar story, since it opens a decade 2020 announced as decisive in order to keep the warming trajectory climate below 2°C, or even below 1.5°C ideally, compared to the pre-industrial era. This is the commitment made by the 191 States to have ratified the Paris climate agreement to date. The commitment also pressed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to hold in its reports, so as not to be exposed to an increase in intensity and number, in the future, of extreme climatic phenomena .
So it is better to make the turn in Glasgow. The success or otherwise of this COP26 will not be measured so much in the anthology of initiatives and coalitions launched in Scotland. But well in what will contain “the final decision” of this COP26, on which the 197 States represented at the COP have been working behind the scenes for the past two weeks. This final document must include all the points on which the parties have agreed. And on which, therefore, they are committed. This is the complexity and strength of this final decision: it must obtain the consent of the 197 stakeholders. First drafts have already been published in recent days by the British Presidency. The latest version this Saturday morning… A brief overview of the main issues.
A mention of fossil fuels?
It would be the first time in the history of the COPs that a final decision mentions fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, oil), the main sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The first version published on Wednesday devoted a short paragraph to it, in the “mitigation” chapter. The Conference of the Parties called on countries “to accelerate the phasing out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies”. A paragraph that was likely to be attacked by countries whose economies are still based on these fossil fuels.
The version published on Saturday keeps this reference to fossil fuels, “but the text has been reduced by the addition of two terms compared to Wednesday, regrets Armelle Le Comte, head of climate and energy advocacy at Oxfam France. It only invites countries to give up on coal projects that are done without carbon capture and storage (CCS) [recovery of CO2 in the fumes released by these coal sites]. It also no longer calls for an end to fossil fuel subsidies of any kind, only "ineffective" ones, a term added to the text. »
A renewal of the ambition imposed from 2022?
We are mainly talking here about the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that countries must put on the table and in which they include their objectives and action plans to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. The 191 States to have ratified the Paris agreement should theoretically arrive in Glasgow with a new NDC, for those who had never submitted one before , and revised upwards for those who had already submitted a first copy in 2015. One hundred and fifty-one copies have been returned to date. It is therefore missing. Above all, a few days before the opening of COP26, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) had warned of the lack of global ambition of the NDCs filed, far from leading us on a trajectory of 1.5°C.
In the draft final declaration, the Conference of the Parties asks ["requests"] countries to review and strengthen their 2030 targets in their NDCs by the end of 2022 to align them with those of the Paris Agreement. Rather positive? “The wording must be stronger and truly commit countries to come back with new NDCs at COP27,” says Armelle Le Comte.
More explicit references to 1.5°C?
As a reminder, the Paris Agreement calls on countries to limit global warming to below 2°C and to make efforts to reach 1, 5°C. Since 2015, a whole series of reports (of which the one published in August by the IPCC is the latest) underline the need to resolutely pursue the 1.5° objective. A message that is starting to get through within countries? “Several texts of the final decision are explicitly based on these reports and urge the parties not to be satisfied with 2°C, welcomed Wednesday, Lola Vallejo, director of the climate program of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations ( Iddri).
Nerdy but important: new text focuses on need for 2030 emission reductions from IPCC SR1.5.
Deleting 2100 shuts the door on accepting a temporary overshoot of 1.5 this century + emphasizes needs for deep emission reductions this decade https://t.co/eqYSqbYGWD
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One of the paragraphs of the "mitigation" chapter thus recognized, in Wednesday's version, that limiting global warming to 1.5°C by 2100 requires rapid, deep and sustainable reductions in emissions global greenhouse gases. In the new version, the mention “by 2100” has disappeared. And that's good news. This deletion “closes the door to the acceptance of a temporary overrun of a global warming trajectory of + 1.5°C during the century, comments, on Twitter, Lola Vallejo. It also puts a little more emphasis on the need for deep emission reductions as early as this decade. »
The forgiveness of rich countries on the 100 billion
This was one of the major topics of this COP26: climate finance. The countries of the North had promised in 2009 to grant 100 billion dollars per year, from 2020, to help developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (mitigation) and adapt to climate change. (adaptation). A broken promise that strains North-South relations in Glasgow.
According to the latest OECD count, in mid-September, we were at 79 billion dollars mobilized in 2019 [including a good part in the form of loans]. In the current texts of the final decision, the Conference of the Parties “notes with deep regret” that this objective has not been achieved and “urges developed countries to offer increased support”. "It goes a little further than Wednesday's version," notes Armelle Le Comte. From "noting with regret", we went to "noting with deep regret". » Subtle. “On the other hand, the countries still do not commit, for the moment, to compensate for each year of delay when we now know that this amount of 100 billion will not be reached before 2023”, continues Armelle Le Comte.
There is also the problem of the distribution of the 80 billion dollars mobilized today. Only 25% (20 billion therefore) is earmarked for adaptation, when the Paris agreement provided for a balance between reduction and adaptation. A point that the countries of the South regularly recall. One of the current paragraphs of the final decision urges developed countries to at least double, by 2025, the share of financing they currently allocate to adaptation. “We would thus go from 20 to 40 billion in 2025, the date on which we will have to reach the 100 billion dollars mobilized per year, notes Armelle Le Comte. We would therefore still not be at 50-50. »
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