La Glasgow Cop26 is nearing the end. After long and intense negotiations, the first draft of the text relating to the final decisions of the summit was published: finance, migration, technology, the Paris Agreement, youth and women, but in that list only the fossil fuelswithout setting a date. This is enough to have sparked controversy and criticism from the most vulnerable countries but also from the most ambitious ones against big polluters such as China, India, Russia and Australia, which are among other things the countries that use coal the most.
It is a document with much promise, but little ambition. For the "exceptionally weak" Greenpeace activists with vague and little detailed passages and even if it is not the final document, the lack of recognition of fossil fuels as the main cause of the climate crisis and the absence of concrete actions to end global dependence on coal, oil and gas, but only to "accelerate the farewell to coal and fossil fuels"
According to the draft, to limit the global warming to 1,5 degrees by 2100 rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions are required, including “reducing global emissions of carbon dioxide by 45% by 2030 compared to the 2010 level and to net zero by around 2050,” recognizing that this “requires meaningful and effective action by all parties in this critical decade, based on the best available scientific knowledge”.
The draft also "asks the parties to accelerate the elimination of coal and fossil fuel subsidies" and "underlines the critical importance of nature-based solutions and ecosystem-based approaches, including protecting and restoring forests, in the reduce emissions and protect biodiversity”.
The increased commitment of developed countries to the Least Developed Countries Relief Facility, as foreseen in the Paris Agreement, is welcomed. These have the goal of reaching the target of 100 billion dollars per year by 2023. However, the document underlines the need to increase support as well as the objective, since not even the target of 100 billion a year from 2020 "has not yet been reached".
The importance of the non-state entities, “including civil society, indigenous peoples, youth and others, in contributing to progress towards the goal of the UN Convention on Climate Change and the goals of the Paris Agreement”. The draft expresses "appreciation" for the "Youth4Climate" held in Milan in September" and "invites future COP presidencies to organize annual discussion platforms between the parties and young people". But it also "encourages the parties to enhance the full, meaningful and equal participation of women in climate action, and to ensure gender-respectful implementation and means of implementation".
The British Prime Minister returns to Scotland Boris Johnson who underlined the need to do more to "grab" the global warming target no more than the 1,5-degree ceiling over the pre-industrial era. At stake is more than the fate of a single country, it is necessary to "unite for the planet".
This document should contain all the main themes on which the final communiqué will then be built. The absence of a precise date to say goodbye to coal and fossils has already raised quite a few controversies.
