COP26: Draft agreement calls for eliminating inefficient fossil fuel subsidies

The new draft agreement for the COP26 climate summit, which was presented this morning by the British presidency, reduces demands on countries to phase out coal and fossil fuel subsidies.

Where the first text, published on Wednesday, called on countries to “accelerate the end of coal and fossil fuel subsidies”, the new draft is limited to calling for the elimination of “inefficient fossil fuel subsidies” and dilutes that petition in a paragraph on the development of new clean technologies.

The text should be examined this morning from 11:00 GMT by the ministers in the plenary of COP26.

The summit “calls on the parties to accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies and the adoption of policies to transition towards low-emission energy systems, rapidly increasing the generation of clean energy and accelerating the elimination of coal and inefficient subsidies to fossil fuels, “says the text.

The inclusion of fossil fuels for the first time in a UN document had raised great suspicions among producing countries and is expected to be one of the most contentious points in today’s negotiations.

At the same time, the new draft requires parties to review and strengthen their national emission reduction plans (NDC) for 2030 before the end of 2022, to make them compatible with the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees by end of century.

The summit is scheduled to end on Friday afternoon, but the number of remaining discrepancies, especially on issues such as financing for developing countries to adapt, make it presumable that it could be extended beyond today.

Fuel and social subsidies reach $ 5,645 million according to the 2021 proforma

Government allocates $ 572 million less to fuel subsidies than those calculated in 2021, according to the 2022 budget pro forma

The E3G think tank noted that the new draft contains new emissions reduction ambitions and a better balance between mitigation and adaptation measures, although “it may not be necessary to create confidence that there will be enough funding.”

“The text will break the red lines of many countries, which will need to look to their capitals for new instructions. Now it is the leaders who must do the heavy lifting ”, E3G considered. (I)