Separately, a $8.5bn partnership was launched for the US, UK, France, Germany and EU to help fund South Africas transition from coal to a clean energy economy over the next five years. Also on energy day, more than 30 countries and financial institutions signed a statement committing to halting all financing for fossil fuel development overseas and diverting the spending to green energy. Finally, a letter from the friends of the COP, an international expert group set up by the UK presidency, was published in the last days of the summit with a series of suggestions for improving the balance of the Glasgow cover text. It was a risky move, but I think it has worked.. The text stated that countries requiring flexibility could choose one or more of a set of options, which include just using the FX notation, collapsing rows or columns where FX is used and collapsing entire tables reporting on less important greenhouse gases. Harjeet Singh, a loss-and-damage expert with Climate Action Network (CAN) International, told Carbon Brief that this was a much-needed step so that parties are not just going to WIM meetings and just talking about it, generating papers, while people are dying. Additionally, fewer women than men participated. in 6.4, the talk about text creating a 2-tier system relates to the section pictured, where credits subject to corresponding adjustment to avoid double counting (PAAUs) would be treated differently to those that arent (PASUs)HT @CarbonReporter pic.twitter.com/rDF8esYvOQ. However, with 12 mentions of loss and damage making it into the final Glasgow pact, there was hope that this issue could be reignited at COP27. A delivery plan released by the COP presidency ahead of the event set out how richer nations would deliver the money by 2023, although new funding from Japan may push them over the line a year earlier. Coordinator for the Arctic Region, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Office of International Religious Freedom, Office of the Special Envoy To Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, Office of the Science and Technology Adviser, Bureau of the Comptroller and Global Financial Services, Bureau of Information Resource Management, Office of Management Strategy and Solutions, Bureau of International Organization Affairs, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Ultimately, the only loss-and-damage financial demand that made it into the final text was for richer nations to support the Santiago network. pic.twitter.com/83fmXLCK9F. It is the first time that India has explicitly addressed the question of a coal exit, according to Chris Littlecott, associate director of thinktank E3G. The delivery of finance is crucial because it is a symbol of global solidarity and an important element to continue building trust in the multilateral system and accelerate climate action in the developing world. We believe in a safe climate and a better future a just, prosperous, and equitable world built with the power of ordinary people.. Time will tell if these investments are a temporary blip or will undermine national climate targets. Protestors have staged a walk out of the #COP26 blue zone just now they are calling for more climate justice in the Glasgow agreement currently being drafted pic.twitter.com/CYAZSc9PKs, Elsewhere, tyres of SUVs activists deflated tires in the city, protesting at the large vehicles disproportionately large climate impact: If 44 drivers were a nation, theyd be the 7th biggest polluters on the planet., NEW: activists have deflated the tires of around 60 4X4s in a Glasgows west end in protest at the cars high levels of emissions. The two sides intend to engage collaboratively in support of eliminating global illegal deforestation through effectively enforcing their respective laws on banning illegal imports. The second finance-specific agenda item was on long-term climate finance, which sounds similar to the post-2025 target, but, despite its name, actually refers to the missed $100bn target, which finished in 2020. As a host, you should also make arrangement for water. Get a round-up of all the important articles and papers selected by Carbon Brief by email. This is a major change from the previous regime, which had different requirements for developed and developing nations. The lessons learned on the provision and mobilization of the $100 billion target are an important marker for issues pertaining to scale, scope, quality and accountability for the new goal, with the potential addition of loss and damage finance as a thematic area. Here, Carbon Brief provides an in-depth summary of all the key outcomes in Glasgow both inside and outside the COP. This was not a new development. Beyond the rhetoric, the shift in language was largely symbolic, given that even the original text had not set any timelines, making the wording open-ended and non-specific. Agriculture: Climate-resilient, sustainable agriculture is the most attractive and widely adopted option for farmers everywhere by 2030. Many activists from poor and developing countries overcame huge obstacles financially and in terms of vaccine access and equity. Xie Zhenhua, Chinas climate envoy, and John Kerry, his US counterpart, held back-to-back press conferences during the evening of 10 November to announce the agreement. The Paris Agreements text outlined requirements for those taking part, but left the details the Article 6 rulebook undecided. Simon Evans, Josh Gabbatiss, Robert McSweeney, Aruna Chandrasekhar, Ayesha Tandon, Giuliana Viglione, Zeke Hausfather, Xiaoying You, Joe Goodmanand Sylvia Hayes. They are committed to its effective implementation and appreciate the intensive work that has taken place to date and the value of continued discussion. Among the companies to opt out were Volkswagen, Renault, Stellantis, BMW and Nissan, said Politico. A two-year Glasgow Sharm el-Sheikh work programme to define a new global goal on adaptation (see: A pledge from developed countries to at least double adaptation finance between 2019 and 2025. One of the major sticking points in the Koronivia negotiations was the proposed inclusion of a reference to agroecology a term that encompasses a diverse range of agricultural practises with a focus on equity and ecosystem protection. The COP26 summit brought parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. Please contact us for commercial use. Among the initiatives was a global coal to clean power transition statement, which commits nations to end all investment in new coal power generation domestically and internationally. As a result, there is little transparency or detail on how the 30% reduction is meant to be achieved, it added. (Note paragraph 22 refers to the 1.5C limit in general, whereas an earlier draft of the text had talked of staying below that level by 2100, implying potential temperature overshoot. The stocktake will coincide with COP28 in the United Arab Emirates, something acknowledged by the nations representative at the summit. In addition to the revised NDCs, there were a series of announcements at COP26 including the global methane pledge and an accelerated coal phaseout, as well as business pledges as part of the Race to Zero campaign. The WIM text that emerged from the summit indicated that the network would identify and connect interested countries with technical assistance, to help them assess current and future loss and damage. As the COP drew to a close, developing country parties welcomed the progress made on defining the functions for the Santiago network. The Water Dispensers of the Vending Services are not only technically advanced but are also efficient and budget-friendly. The target, he said, includes building 500GW of renewable energy by 2030 to ensure that half of Indias electricity generation comes from renewable sources. The COP26 fortnight kicked off with speeches available here from a range of world leaders, dignitaries and campaigners. By contrast, climate NGOs said wealthy countries were happy for the network to remain as nothing more than a website. Rules on transparency of climate action and support one of the last unresolved parts of the Paris rulebook were finally decided at COP26, but not without considerable effort. It also has associate members of California, New Zealand and Portugal and boasts Italy as a friend of BOGA the latter signalling its support for BOGAs objectives, but not taking action to cut fossil fuel production at this time, explained DeSmog. Faced with natural gas shortages, several E.U. The GlaSS discussions also provide an opportunity to help advance equitable, locally led adaptation. Their inclusion in the list is absolutely key.. COP27 can help in shaping the Stocktakes direction by offering the space for countries, experts and non-state actors to develop a common vision. , Loss and damage is likely to be one of the bigger issues leading up to the COP27 summit in Egypt next year., Many of the rules underpinning how the Paris Agreement will be implemented were adopted in 2018. ?+*LMp&T-D,x 8:)r: O z}-F2oGQfY.\+XO7x]eO0;pYY There was also widespread anger among many observers that they had been provided with limited access to the opening plenaries and leaders summit. A week later on 12 November the last official day of COP26 civil society groups and activists staged a walk-out of the blue zone (the UN-controlled area where the negotiations take place) following a peoples plenary organised by the COP26 Coalition, in which indigenous leaders and activists spoke. Against this backdrop, negotiators were due to arrive in Glasgow to adopt a series of dense, technical decisions to finalise the Paris rulebook, including new emissions reporting rules for all countries from 2024 and the Article 6 carbon markets. endobj As COP26 went into overtime on Friday evening, it became clear that this matter was one of the key issues holding up negotiations, with the US and the EU both accused of blocking attempts to insert language about finance. In any case, the explicit reference to reducing coal use marked a significant first for the UN climate process, after nearly 30 years of summits. At COP24 in 2018, countries agreed that all NDCs should cover a common timeframe from 2031, with the length of the timeframe to be decided later. Diego Pacheco, lead negotiator for Bolivia and spokesperson for the LMDCs, told Carbon Brief: This idea of expanding onthe question of who is going to provide finance to the new quantified collective goal is not serious, is not responsible, [for] countries trying to take the lead on climate action., Bolivian negotiator at #COP26 for the LMDCs group that includes China and India emphasises that countries are not all equally responsible for climate change. However, a briefing paper published by Chatham House examining the outcomes of COP26 remarked: The formal agreements reached at COP26 do not provide good grounds for optimismthat sufficient progress has been made on transparency and carbon markets.. COP27 also needs to signal that adaptation grant-based finance will substantially increase since finance for adaptation remains far underfunded in comparison to mitigation. The United States and China recall their firm commitment to work together and with other Parties to strengthen implementation of the Paris Agreement. UK prime minister Boris Johnson opened the leaders summit, which ran over two days, by warning that the world has run down the clock on climate change. A post shared by Carbon Brief (@carbonbrief). Either way, these credits along with the roughly 300m pre-2020 Kyoto offsets will be clearly labelled, setting up potential reputational risks for buyers choosing to use them. In the table below, Carbon Brief has compiled the key meetings and milestones leading up to COP27 in Egypt. The response measures forum within the UNFCCC process has been politicised historically, with negotiations often strung out late into the second week of COPs as a means by some parties of winning concessions in other areas of the negotiations. This would work as follows. A further group of countries, including India and Kenya, have agreed to work intensely towards accelerated proliferation of zero-emissions vehicles, noted the Guardian. Highlights include: One other paragraph of the pact garnered disproportionate media attention after its wording, according to Politico, almost sunk the Glasgow climate deal. For example, the UN Environment Programme places annual adaptation costs for developing countries today at $70bn, but estimates that this could quadruple by 2030. We came here, only to find that in the first three days, we were pretty much locked out of the proceedings.. The language also shifted to calling for the doubling to happen by 2025 at first from the current level and the, ultimately, clarifying that this meant 2019, the most recent year for which climate finance figures are available from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Delegates huddle at closing plenary of COP26. On Friday morning, a new text emerged that included a mention of a technical assistance facility to provide financial support for technical assistance. "I can't stress enough: Secretary Kerry has no plans to depart, and his sole focusis COP27, period, and anything else is baseless speculation," said Kerry spokesperson Whitney Smith. , In addition, the pact asks nations to consider further actions to curb potent non-CO2 gases, such as methane, and includes language emphasizing the need to phase down unabated coal and phase-out fossil fuel subsidies. This marked the first time negotiators have explicitly referencedshifting away from coal and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies in COP decision text., And lastly, this COP finally recognized the importance of nature for both reducing emissions and building resilience to the impacts of climate change, both in the formal text and also through a raft of initiatives announced on the sidelines., So, in the end, diplomats managed to keep hopes of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C alive, but just barely. Countries will also be pressed to make progress on the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) in Egypt. (The IPCC special report on 1.5C and the International Energy Agencys net-zero emissions pathway both suggest that much more rapid cuts in coal use are needed to stay below 1.5C, relative to what is required of oil and gas but use of all three will need to be cut.). That Depends on 4 Critical Questions. y'n0>h"N'CwX ^H1|Sr~4 {EujLQ5 Taking into account the above cooperation, as appropriate, the two sides intend to do the following before COP 27: They intend to develop additional measures to enhance methane emission control, at both the national and sub-national levels. Virtual climate talks held earlier in 2021 had already seen constructive discussions of sources of input, such as scientific reports, that needed to be decided before work starts in 2022. Official UNFCCC and independent reports consistently show that developed countries are missing the $100-billion-per-year target. COP27 needs to provide certainty around delivery of the $100 billion by 2023, including by meeting the pledges made in Glasgow to the Adaptation Fund, communicating new and additional pledges to multilateral funds and in bilateral support. AP noted that earlier in the day, it had seemed that Poland might bring that deadline forward by at least a decade. Writing in June this year in the Economic Times, Lutes said: Why are common timeframes critical? According to the announcement, delivering on the pledge would reduce warming by at least 0.2C by 2050. These targets also need to be backed by policies and crucially, investment to turn them into action. Various reactions to the Article 6 deal emphasised the need for market participants, including in voluntary markets, to only claim emissions reductions backed by a corresponding adjustment. He said that he is still unclear about the implications of maintaining the ability to collapse and expand elements, adding that flexibility options may be built into the reporting software in a way that would not impact the final presentation of the reports. pic.twitter.com/8c3UZIfFNg, Morrison added that he believes Australia may cut emissions by 35%, but that the countrys 26-28% emissions reduction target will not be changed making Australia one of the few countries not to increase its short-term NDC. Indeed, the Glasgow Climate Pact reflects some, but by no means all of the requests made by various groups ahead of and during the summit. Whether they succeeded or not is up for debate, but the Glasgow Climate Pact that emerged from the summit was welcomed by many for its commitment to doubling adaptation finance and requesting countries to present more ambitious climate pledges next year. These are positive developments that underscore the need to elevate loss and damage at COP27. This was seen as a step forward because it has the potential to address the long-overlooked action and support element of the WIM. In the first week, another pitch for the cover text came in from the High Ambition Coalition (HAC) of small island states, the least developed countries, the EU and others. The HAC had helped drive through the Paris Agreement in 2015, particularly its inclusion of the 1.5C ambition, and its heft was increased as the US rejoined near the start of COP26. regulatory frameworks and environmental standards related to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the 2020s; maximizing the societal benefits of the clean energy transition; policies to encourage decarbonization and electrification of end-use sectors; key areas related to the circular economy, such as green design and renewable resource utilization; and. The two sides stress the vital importance of closing that gap as soon as possible, particularly through stepped-up efforts. By the second Friday of the summit, a new draft emerged. As record-breaking numbers of delegates gathered in the Scottish city, they were joined by world leaders inside the vast venue beside the Clyde river and huge crowds of protesters outside. Strengthening monitoring and evaluating of adaptation is also vital as more countriesturn to implementingtheir recently completed NAP documents and more ambitious NDCs. By continuing to browse this site, you consent to the use of cookies and similar technologies. . WRI relies on the generosity of donors like you to turn research into action. Civil society groups tentatively welcomed this progress, while emphasising that there is still a long way to go in providing adequate adaptation financing. This funding is not expected to be particularly large and will initially only support a small staff.