It is likely that this COP26 will play overtime, as indeed the majority of these UN climate summits before it. But, in theory, the curtain must fall this Friday evening on the
Scottish Event Glasgow Campus after fifteen days of intense negotiations between the 197 parties (countries) members of the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Cnucc).
This COP26 was presented as the most important since that of Paris – the COP21 – in 2015. First for a calendar story, since it opens a 2020 decade announced as decisive in order to keep the trajectory of global warming under the 2 ° C, 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 urged to hold the Intergovernmental Group of Experts on Climate Change (IPCC), in its reports, so as not to be exposed to an increase in intensity and number, in the future, of climatic phenomena. extremes.
Better to make the turn in Glasgow. The success or not 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 work behind the scenes, for two weeks, the 197 States represented at the COP. This final document must include all the points on which the parties have reached agreement. And on which, therefore, they are committed. This is all the complexity and all the 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 last version this Friday, in the early morning … A brief overview of the main issues.
A mention of fossil fuels?
This would be the first time in the history of the COP that a final decision mentions fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, oil), the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions. 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 phase-out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies”. A paragraph that had a good chance of being attacked by countries whose economies are still based on these fossil fuels.
The version published last night keeps this mention to fossil fuels, “but the text was 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 exit from coal projects that cannot be done without the implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) techniques. [la récupération de CO2 dans les fumées relâchées par ces sites charbonniers]. It no longer calls for an end to fossil fuel subsidies, whatever they are, but only “inefficient” ones, a term added to the text. “
A change in the ambition imposed from 2022?
We are talking here, mainly, of the National Determined Contributions (NDCs) that countries must place 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 were supposed to 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 – fifty-one copies have been returned to date. It is therefore lacking. Above all, a few days before the opening of COP26, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) warned of the lack of global ambition of the CDNs submitted, far from leading us on a path of 1.5 ° C.
In the last version submitted of the texts of the final decision, the Conference of the Parties requests [« request »] countries to review and strengthen their 2030 objectives 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 genuinely commit the countries to return with new NDCs to COP27”, considers 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 starting to get across 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
– Lola Vallejo (@vallejolola) November 12, 2021
One of the paragraphs in the “mitigation” chapter thus recognized, in Wednesday’s version, that limiting global warming to 1.5 ° C by 2100 requires rapid, deep and lasting reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions. tight. 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 over the course of the century,” comments on Twitter, Lola Vallejo. It also places a little more emphasis on the need for significant emission reductions starting this decade. “
The forgiveness of the rich countries on the 100 billion
This was one of the major topics of this COP26: climate finance. On this subject, was very quickly evoked with the promise which had made the countries of the North, in 2009, to grant 100 billion dollars per year, from 2020, to help the developing countries to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gases (mitigation) and adapting to climate change (adaptation). A broken promise that is straining North-South relations in Glasgow.
According to the latest OECD count, mid-September, we were at $ 79 billion mobilized in 2019 [dont une bonne part sous forme de prêts]. 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,” points out Armelle Le Comte. From “note with regret”, we moved to “note with deep regret”. »Subtle. “On the other hand, the countries still do not commit, for the moment, to compensate each year of delay whereas 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 currently mobilized. Only 25% (20 billion therefore) is directed towards adaptation, when the Paris agreement provided for a balance between reduction and adaptation. 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 funding they allocate today to adaptation. “We would thus go from 20 billion to 40 billion in 2025, when 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. “