COP26: Draft deal calls for stronger carbon cutting targets by end of 2022

Countries are being urged to strengthen their carbon-cutting targets by the end of 2022 in a draft agreement published at the COP26 Glasgow climate summit.

The document says vulnerable nations must get more help to cope with the deadly impacts of global warming.

It also says countries should submit long-term strategies for reaching net-zero by the end of next year.

Critics have said the draft pact does not go far enough but others welcomed its focus on the 1.5C target.

The document, which has been published by the UK COP26 presidency, will have to be negotiated and agreed by countries attending the talks.

The document may be just seven pages long but it attempts to steer COP26 towards a series of significant steps that will prevent global temperature rises going above 1.5C this century.

Perhaps the most important part of that is getting countries to improve their carbon cutting plans.

To that end this draft decision urges parties to “revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their nationally-determined contributions, as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022”.

It will be interesting to see how countries such as China, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia respond to this request to put new plans on the table by the end of next year.

There is some comfort for developing countries to see that their financial needs are recognised as countries are asked to mobilise climate finance “beyond $100bn a year” and the draft welcomes steps to put in place a much larger, though as yet unspecified, figure for support from 2025.

Loss and damage, an issue of key importance to the developing world, is included in the draft with encouragement to richer countries to scale up their action and support including finance for poorer nations.

The document also calls on countries to accelerate the phase out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels – but has no firm dates or targets on this issue. Campaigners will welcome the inclusion and will hope it survives into the final text.

BBC