An agreement is sought at the last minute at the UN climate summit in Glasgow. The 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was supposed to close yesterday at 18.00 in the Scottish city, but negotiations will continue today with the aim of uniting the positions of the countries. This was announced by the president of Cop26, Alok Sharma in a message to the delegates published by the UN.
“With my team – underlines Alok Sharma – we are now engaged in intense consultations in an attempt to reflect the opinions expressed, find the right balance and develop a final statement that is constructive. The consultations, and then the elaboration of the texts, will require some weather”. A new plenary meeting is expected to take place around 10 am and a third version of the final declaration text will be published on Saturday. “The possibility of formal plenary meetings on Saturday afternoon will be considered to take decisions and close the session tomorrow.”
It is not new that the climate summits extend beyond the fortnight provided for the negotiations. The previous meeting, held in Madrid in December 2015, was the longest summit in history, as it concluded the following Sunday morning, beating the previous length record held by the Cop of Durban. Efforts to iron out the deal will therefore continue, as the plenary was held on Friday afternoon to discuss the latest drafts released by the British presidency on Friday morning.
Several developing countries have asked for more funds from developed nations to undertake the process of decarbonization and adaptation to climate change, and are calling for more financial support for the losses and damage they face as a result of rising sea levels and climate change. increase in extreme temperatures.
Additionally, a large number of countries have called for stronger action on the fossil fuel shift process after the use of language on decoupling and fossil fuel subsidies was weakened in the final draft of the decision presented on Friday morning. On the other hand, there are concerns about setting a global temperature rise target of 1.5 ° C to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, which is a matter of “life and death”, given that many countries they are unwilling to move to the limit set by UN climate change experts as a red alert point.
The new version of the final declaration “invites” countries to review and strengthen their emission reduction plans for 2030 and to align them with the temperature target of the Paris Agreement has been hailed as a stronger language than the first. version of the draft that “urged” countries to do so.
The new draft also includes a 2025 deadline for developed countries to double funding to help the poorest and most vulnerable nations adapt to the impacts of climate change they are not primarily responsible for.
Negotiations at COP26 will continue today, sources involved in the negotiations report to the DPA, while efforts are still underway to save the 1.5-degree limit of global warming. A new draft of the final declaration will not be presented until Saturday morning.
The Glasgow summit was due to end on Friday, but the debate on formulating efforts to phase out fossil fuels, among other issues, has extended the talks to extra time.
About 40,000 delegates attended the mammoth conference, at the end of which all 200 states will have to unanimously adopt the final text.