Discussion on who will pay the climate bill the agenda of the COP26 is taken

As the last day of the two-week UN climate summit approaches (COP26), delegations intensified their efforts to reach an agreement to curb global warming, focusing on finding money to help developing countries cope with the worst effects.

A first draft of the COP26 agreement released on Wednesday implicitly acknowledged that current commitments were insufficient to prevent climate catastrophe, and received mixed response from activists and climate experts.

However, a surprising agreement at the end of Wednesday between China and USA, the world’s two largest greenhouse gas emitters, raised hopes that the nearly 200 national delegations could strengthen their collective commitments by Friday.

“Climate finance”, or helping poor nations most vulnerable to floods, droughts and rising seas caused by global warming, is now a central aspect of the negotiations, hours before a new draft.

The president of the British conference, Alok Sharma, said that the last draft of conclusions that he had seen showed “significant” progress, but that it did not reach the goal.

“I would like to address the critical need to redouble our efforts today to get where we need to be to achieve substantial funding results,” he said.

Developing countries want stricter rules starting in 2025, after rich countries failed to deliver on their promise to contribute US $ 100 billion a year by 2020 to help them curb emissions and tackle carbon losses. effects of rising temperatures.

Wednesday’s draft was limited to “urging” developed countries to “urgently increase” aid for the poorest to adapt to climate change, and called for more funding through grants rather than loans, which increase the burden of Debt.

The US $ 100 billion target is expected to be missed three years behind schedule, undermining the confidence of developing countries and making some of them reluctant to be more ambitious in their emission reduction targets.

The sum, which according to many activists is in any case woefully insufficient, is divided into a part for “mitigation”, to help poor countries in their ecological transition, and another for “adaptation”, to help them manage extreme climatic events. .

A more controversial aspect, known as “loss and damage”, would compensate them for the damage they have already suffered from global warming, although this is outside the US $ 100 billion and some rich countries do not recognize the demand.

Poor countries say a tax on carbon markets would be critical help, but rich nations, including European Union states, are concerned about the costs.

“Facts and responsibility”

The host of the conference, Great Britain, says that the overall objective of COP26 is to “keep alive” hopes of limiting global temperature to 1.5 ° C above the pre-industrial level, something that is still far from being achieved with current commitments. national emissions reduction measures.

There is growing scientific evidence that crossing that threshold would trigger much worse heat waves, storms and wildfires than are already occurring, with irreversible consequences.

The jury does not know if the Glasgow talks are making significant progress towards the 1.5 ° C target.

Some think tanks are encouraged by the agreements reached on issues such as deforestation, the reduction of methane – a potent greenhouse gas – and the fact that Wednesday’s draft addresses the issue of reducing fossil fuels.

Others point out that commitments and timelines are not clear enough, especially from big polluters like China, India and Russia.

The agreement between the United States and China on Wednesday was a joint recognition of the need to intensify efforts over the next decade to curb rising temperatures and new commitments from Beijing to reduce emissions and protect forests.

Aside from the concrete commitments, which were meager in numbers, most observers agreed that the significance of the agreement was that two world powers, often at odds, are cooperating.

“The real good news about this agreement is that they have spoken, because if the content is analyzed, it is a series of general commitments to agree on a roadmap for the climate,” said the Minister of Ecological Transition of Italy, Roberto Cingolani .