Unsolved questions about the coal stop or aid payments to developing countries did not bring the UN climate conference, like many of its predecessors, to an end on schedule in Glasgow. A rather watered-down draft of the final declaration, in which US climate commissioner John Kerry identified the “definition of insanity”, needs to be reviewed. “We are not yet satisfied”, so the preliminary résumé of Austria’s Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens).
The passages objected to in the new draft were about phasing out coal – according to Gewessler the “dirtiest energy” – and about accelerating the end of subsidies for fossil fuels. Now only coal-fired power plants are recorded in the new text, the emitted carbon dioxide of which is “not bound” – for example through storage in rock. Critics of this technology argue that it is uncertain whether the carbon dioxide will remain trapped over the envisaged period of 10,000 years or whether it will not escape. In terms of subsidies, it is now restrictive that only “inefficient” subsidies should be cut – this in turn led to the “insanity” -say from Kerry: “These subsidies have to go.” In the past five years, 2.5 trillion dollars (2,181.50 billion euros) of such climate-damaging services have flowed worldwide.
According to official planning, the event with delegations from almost 200 countries should have ended at 6:00 p.m. local time (7:00 p.m. CET). Other controversial points at COP26 include financial aid for poorer countries for climate protection measures and adaptation to climate change, as well as the rules for the use of emission certificates for more climate protection in accordance with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
Video: Eva Pcksteiner (ORF) reports from Glasgow
It was Gewessler’s job to negotiate the latter issue for the EU side. The basis is now better than in the previous conference in Madrid two years ago, said the environment minister, and the market mechanisms as a whole are a “complex topic with many cross-connections”. Last but not least, there are also more symbolic questions for the final text, such as the fact that the COP26 motto, “Keeping 1.5-degree targets within reach”, should appear here. The fact that the decision text contains a call to the states to review their national climate protection goals (NDCs) more frequently than previously planned can be rated as positive. They should put their NDCs to the test by 2022 – three years earlier than planned. However, in the revised version of the text it was again added that “the special national circumstances” are to be taken into account.
But even with the carbon certificates, everything was still not clear: “For example, we must not allow certificates to be hoarded indefinitely,” said Gewessler, opposing strategic savings. Now the existing gaps are to be closed over the night, and a consensus is to be found. “Consensus does not mean unanimity, it means that no one can veto,” said Helmut Hojesky, head of the Austrian delegation of officials.
In any case, these questions should be resolved slowly in Glasgow, because Article 6 is part of the Paris “Rulebook” that has been waiting for its conclusion for years. In 2019, the German Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (SPD) said it would be “no failure of the conference” and “no drama” if this conclusion did not succeed. If, however, the Paris Climate Agreement were to remain without a set of rules in its sixth year of existence, it would not be a good sign in view of the urgency of action that has been admonished by science. On the other hand, fossil fuels were named as the main driver of global warming for the first time in the final text, which was not yet the case in the Paris Treaty – for some observers even a “ray of hope”
Source From: Nachrichten
