COP 26: the new draft of the climate agreement generates diverse reactions among environmentalists

The new draft agreement published this Friday at COP26 has generated mixed reactions: while some analysts value the greater balance between the demands to reduce emissions and the financing proposals for poor countries, environmental NGOs regret that the references to the end of hydrocarbons have been diluted in the new text.

The environmental analyst Ed King notes that the new provisional text, which replaces another issued on Wednesday, “It seems significantly more balanced, with stronger elements in the concepts of adaptation, financing and loss and damage” climate change, which offer more hope of support to poor countries that suffer its consequences without having instigated it.

The Idea Lab E3G stressed that this second draft contains more concrete ambitions in reducing emissions and “a better balance” between mitigation measures (what countries have to do to reduce their CO2 emissions) and adaptation (financial support for developing States can make the necessary changes).

Regarding mitigation, the new draft asks governments to “Check and reinforce” for the COP27 in 2022 its emission reduction targets until 2030 and urges those who have not yet submitted their national strategies to do so also within that period, with the goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

In addition, it says that HIM-HER-IT will review these plans annually, in order to increase the probability of compliance.

The text expresses “A big disappointment” – what is considered powerful diplomatic language – because rich countries have not fulfilled the commitment made in 2009 to contribute 100 billion dollars a year to developing countries by 2020 and urges them to increase that contribution between this year and 2025 .

King considers it positive that a working group be set up to develop the concept of “damages and losses”, in order to analyze subsidies to countries without resources that have to go into debt to recover from natural disasters that have contributed less than the big economies to cause .

The language of hydrocarbons

One of the most controversial points of the text released today, which the ministers of the 197 countries participating in this climate summit will analyze during the day, is the change of language in a paragraph referring to hydrocarbons.

Where the first draft called on states to “accelerate the end of coal and fossil fuel subsidies,” the new one is limited to calling for “accelerating the elimination of coal without carbon capture systems” and for “inefficient subsidies to fossil fuels”.

The co-spokesperson of the Spanish environmental party Greens FAIR and member of the World Greens delegation, Florent Marcellesi, He told EFE that, “unsurprisingly,” the document “has been weakened by Saudi Arabia or Australia,” with the idea that “there are good fossil fuels.”

“This is a fallacy, the best fossil fuels are those that stay underground,” he said.

The director of Greenpeace, Jennifer Morgan, regretted that the reference to hydrocarbons “has weakened critically” although she acknowledged that “at least it is still there” and urges to “reinforce it” before the end of the summit.

What Oxfam and Friends of the Earth, Morgan sees the “footprints” of the oil-producing countries in the move to modify the article on coal, oil and gas.

The head of Greenpeace admits that the new draft recognizes “better” the financial needs of developing countries, but denounces “cynical movements” to manipulate the negotiations on the carbon offset market in order to favor polluting countries.

Sara Shaw, from Friends of the Earth, warns that the final agreement, which must be released at the end of the COP26 -theoretically today, although it could be lengthened-, “it contains gaps and gray areas” that end up undermining efforts to limit the rise in temperature to 1.5 degrees this century, as stated in the 2015 Paris Agreement.