My Cop26 diary: The end is in sight, but uncertainties linger on the horizon.
A.J. Camacho
Thursday marked the last themed day for COP26, with a focus on cities and towns. That leaves only Friday for the closure of negotiations - by 6 pm if all goes to schedule. Relatively small developments came from Thursday, with little substance to new announcements but an evident battle over rhetoric. In spite of these events, the reality of Cop26 appears more-or-less set.
The "Action Hub" of COP26 and the "obligatory globe shot" (as Lisa Friedman of the NYT put it).
UK pledge for global South cities.
The UK today pledged £27.5 million of new funding for the new Urban Climate Action Programme to support cities targeting net zero. Specifically, the funds will go to municipalities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America through the implementation of projects like low-emission public transport systems, renewable energy generation, and sustainable waste management.
While the funds will certainly leave an impact, they fall well short of what experts believe are trillions of pounds to make all cities carbon-neutral by the middle of the century.
22 countries ask coal and fossil fuel mentions be stripped from deal.
In what Amy Cassidy of CNN called, “the fiercest opposition to the summit's draft agreement,” the Like-Minded Developing Countries group announced it would oppose the entire mitigation section of the COP26 cover decision draft. The group consists of 22 countries, including China, India, Bolivia, and Saudi Arabia.
The mitigation section of the decision agrees that the world should limit warming to 1.5 C and has a historic commitment to phase out coal and subsidies for fossil fuels (though there is no deadline as of yet). The LMDC group argues that expecting poor countries to make the same mitigation efforts as rich ones unfairly “transfers responsibility” away from the Global North that is primarily responsible for the crisis.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres walking by, refusing to take my question on his impressions of COP so far.
While it is unlikely the entire mitigation section will be scrapped, its removal would eliminate any credibility to the COP Presidency’s claims that the conference “kept 1.5 within reach.” Even the UK’s lead negotiator Archie Young seemed to hint in a press conference Thursday that if the LMDC group had their way, COP26 would not constitute a “success.”
The fog is clearing.
After nearly two weeks of negotiations, the outcomes of COP26 are coming into view. COP26 President Alok Sharma has said a second draft of the cover decision to be released overnight will likely have finalized all major issues.
What are those outcomes? Increased climate financing, commitments to curtail fossil fuels, new instruments for international coordination, and many others. Agriculture reform has seen remarkably little attention relative to other greenhouse gas-intensive sectors. But the bigger question remains: is it enough? Was COP26 a success?
Climate science has proven fairly accurate, but predicting the future is never exact. In addition to government pledges, there are economic entities, technologies-to-be, and 7.9 billion people at work. COP26 failed to reach its goal of raising $100 billion in annual climate finance, but whether it has kept a 1.5 warming limit within reach and whether the world will reach net-zero by 2050 cannot yet be determined with certainty.
But I get ahead of myself! There’s still another day left.
Stay tuned for more Cop26 coverage from The Scoop.
A.J. Camacho is a reporter for The Scoop and is attending Cop26