COP26 blog: Live from Glasgow

SWI swissinfo.ch is on the ground at the climate conference in Glasgow. Here's what is happening. 

Saturday, November 13, 2021

Deadline past

After going into overtime, delegates to the COP26 from 197 countries are expected to review a new draft text of a final decision later today. These include issues such as carbon markets, climate finance for developing countries, carbon mitigation and adaptation as well as defining the frequency at which carbon-cutting pledges should be submitted by countries.

On Friday, Swiss environment minister Simonetta Sommaruga told a plenary stocktaking meeting intended to make countries positions known, that “if countries do not develop long term low greenhouse gas strategies with 1.5 degrees (Celsius) objective we will not get there.”

She emphasized that the summit meeting in Glasgow should not weaken the 2015 Paris climate treaty.

“We need an outcome that leads us to 1.5 degrees (Celsius) objective and prevents catastrophic [environmental] tipping points,” she added. This is the point scientists believe small changes may provoke larger shifts leading to irreversible, mounting effects, she said.  

But many issues, most notably regarding climate finance remained unresolved Friday night, even after social society groups organized new demonstrations in and outside of the restricted conference venue.

Friday, November 12, 2021

Still not there…

On Friday, the UK presidency presented a new draft agreement ahead of the close of climate negotiations here. The text was longer and involved more detail that the first edition submitted a day earlier, but represented a tempering of its stance on fossil fuel reductions.

The draft continues to call for an accelerated phase-out of coal and “inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”, the first ever mention of the important source of global-warming CO2 emissions.

But it also said upgrades in pledges by countries should take into consideration “different national circumstances”, a softening of language that many say may slow down tough action on combatting climate change.

Discussions are nonetheless ongoing on several issues including climate finance to developing countries. A final decision on an agreed text will require the approval by all 197 parties.

As negotiators continued deliberations, Swiss environment minister Simonetta Sommaruga told SWI swissinfo.ch on Thursday that negotiations remained complex, adding that camps were not clear-cut.

“There are different issues where the least developed countries, African countries and Latin American countries, but also some rich countries agree on transparency, where we have very strict rules where everyone has to show results and measures that have been taken,” she said.

The minister added that when it comes to carbon market rules, “we need more ambition.”  She said that “some groups of developing countries”, in favour of double-counting, “do not want more transparency and more ambition. It is more complicated than developing countries and industrialised countries. It is quite complicated.”

Thursday, November 11, 2021

A roundup review of countries’ positions on critical yet unresolved issues including climate finance, climate change mitigation and adaptation, as well as carbon markets, was expected this morning at 11am GMT in a plenary session, in an effort to find areas of common ground ahead of the official closing of COP26 on Friday.

The presentation of a draft documentExternal link on Wednesday put negotiators on the start of a tight time schedule during which it is hoped that an agreement may be found.

Arriving Wednesday evening in Glasgow, UK Prime minister Boris Johnson said that while “COP is not going to fix it in one go… we should go away with the first genuine roadmap for a solution to anthropogenic climate change.” Suggesting that a prolongation of talks was possible, he said, “I don’t see why we shouldn’t go into overtime.”

The last climate talks in Madrid in 2019 represented the longest session on record, going on two days longer than planned.

An agreement struck between political rivals the US and China – the world’s two largest carbon emitters – on Wednesday evening is also seen as a way to nudge delegations meeting here towards success.

But civil society groups feel the draft presented by the COP26’s UK presidency is still weak; and demonstrators, like those in the clip below, are still unhappy with the inaction.

“Where is the support to help people forced to pick up the pieces after climate disasters? Where is the action to meet all this talk of urgency?” said Teresa Anderson, Climate Policy Coordinator at Action Aid International. “With this text [the draft document published on Wednesday] our leaders are failing us all. These empty words are way off target to meet the scale of the enormous challenge facing humanity.”

Meanwhile, a mention of the phasing out of coal and subsidies in fossil fuels in the draft generated reaction from those saying it didn’t go far enough to include oil and gas. Energy producers such as Saudi Arabia also expressed opposition, which is a major thorn in progress in Glasgow. The reference to an elimination of coal was however a first at the UN climate talks, the first of which took place in Berlin in 1995.

Wednesday, November 10, 2021

Differences continue as deadline looms

While the UK presidency announced a first draft of a document that it hopes countries will sign up to at the end of the week for further climate action, Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga signaled to Swiss journalists on Tuesday evening that key positions in negotiations were still “different”.

The Swiss minister arrived a day early than scheduled, and met with her Rwandan counterpart, Jeanne D’Arc Mjawamariya. COP26 President Alok Sharma had nominated the two countries to broker a deal to break the deadlock over how often countries should be updating their carbon-cutting pledges, called common timeframes.

The two ministers will have to consolidate opposing camps. Some parties, including Switzerland and the European Union, say these should be updated every five years, while others, such as China, would prefer reviews every ten years.

Swiss Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga, in Glasgow on Wednesday. Paula Dupraz-Dobias

Similar pairings were selected on other issues that had remained pending since the 2019 climate summit and needed clarification. They come amid concerns over growing scientific evidence and the real-time impact of global warming, which is already at 1.1°C to 1.2°C over pre-industrial levels. The Paris Agreement set a goal to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C.

Other bilateral assignments include Egypt and Sweden working on climate finance for developing countries, Norway and Singapore looking at carbon markets and offsetting, and Denmark and Grenada are dealing with more ambitious carbon mitigation efforts. Spain and Maldives are also looking at adaptation and Jamaica and Luxembourg are dealing with loss and damage, or whether wealthy polluters should support victims of climate change and how.

Sommaruga said there were “many elephants in many [negotiating] rooms” and “we only have a few days and hours left” to come to an agreement.

She told SWI swissinfo.ch that despite the rejection earlier this year of the revised CO2 law in a referendum, the fact that Switzerland had been selected by the COP presidency to mediate over common timeframes “shows that Switzerland still has a lot of credibility and confidence here, and it will not change anything with the referendum.”

Earlier in the day the delegation presented the country’s own pioneering carbon offsetting plans, such as the one being piloted in Peru. The presentation took place at a side event with the participation of the supermarket chain Coop.
 

Tuesday, November 9, 2021

It’s all about the money

With the clock ticking ahead of the officially scheduled end of the UN climate summit on Friday, Swiss Environment Minister Simonetta Sommaruga arrived a day earlier than planned in Glasgow. “The negotiations are at an important point right now. That is why the ministers are now intervening directly,” the federal councilor tweeted, adding, “At COP26 I am committed to clear rules that apply to everyone.”

The second week began with delegates mulling over the long-deliberated issue of adaptation finance for developing countries and that of financial compensation for the most vulnerable communities resulting from loss and damage due to climate change.

The two issues have long been sticking points in climate negotiations, and are closely linked to the wider issue of climate finance from the global north to the south, which has yet to reach its target goal of $100 billion per year, set in 2009.

Discussions on these matters, which small island states and other countries on the frontlines of climate change say are vital, continued into Tuesday. Humanitarian organisations, which have upped their presence and voice in Glasgow, added to calls for more international adaptation finance.

This morning a group of aid organisations, including the Geneva-based UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), issued warnings that the sector has “reached its limit”, and that without the right financing arriving early and going to communities, that it will collapse. 

Hans Joerg Strohmeyer, policy development chief at the United Nations Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) pointed out that of the 15 countries most affected by climate change globally, 12 are already receiving humanitarian assistance. 

“We are already serving 130 million people today with a funding gap of 30%. We are hoping to cap global warming at 1.5 °C. That would be 0.3 °C more than what we have today, with not enough money to serve 130 million with what they need. Imagine 2.7 °C or beyond,” Strohmeyer said.  

The World Health Organization meanwhile announced a partnership with the UK government and the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change, which is leading the talks here, to develop climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems.

Monday, November 8, 2021

The last stretch : COP26 talks resume after weekend break  

A day after delegates at the United Nations climate summit here were given an official rest day with the conference venue remaining closed, the final week of what some have called the “last ditch” talks, resumed Monday. Officials, civil society advocates, and journalists shuffled back into the sprawling venue on the River Clyde to get back to work.  

The first days of the meeting had seen a series of major announcements by groups of countries, including a pact on reducing deforestation, methane gases and coal production, as well as new net zero pledges by major emitters.  But the real work of the negotiators, to clarify any undefined procedures in the Paris Agreement is still far from finished.  

Discussions continue on rules for global carbon markets, or carbon offsetting by wealthy countries, and pressure is growing for real results as well as greater ambition. Some participants are calling for more regular updates of carbon cutting pledges to two years, as opposed to the five years that the EU and Switzerland agree to.   

With Monday’s theme at the conference being Adaptation and Loss and Damage, indigenous leaders and small island states on the climate frontlines are hoping to be heard, and not drown out by an expected speech from former US president Barack Obama. 

Some 100,000 protesters who filled the city center on Saturday are hoping that negotiators will deliver and wrap up the essential loose ends that spell out guidelines in the Paris treaty. After the annual talks were delayed by a year due to the pandemic, 2030, the year that many scientists say is a point of no return on aggressive to climate action, is now even closer away. A recent report by the Geneva-based Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the critical threshold of 1.5 °C warming is expected in the next 20 years.