World leaders from nearly 200 countries have struck a deal at the COP26 climate change conference, a hard-fought victory after two weeks of discussion.
The agreement reached Saturday in Glasgow, Scotland, pushes countries to phase down “unabated” coal power across the world and to phase out “inefficient” subsidies for fossil fuels. The deal marks the first time the need to limit the consumption of fossil fuels has been mentioned in a global climate agreement despite their responsibility for warming the planet.
But countries were forced to weaken the language on coal after a last-minute protest from India and China, two leading emitters that are continuing to increase their consumption of the dirtiest fossil fuel as their economies grow, prompting cries from some that the deal doesn’t go far enough.
“The #COP26 outcome is a compromise, reflecting the interests, contradictions & state of political will in the world today,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said. “It’s an important step, but it’s not enough. It’s time to go into emergency mode. The climate battle is the fight of our lives & that fight must be won. The agreement also aims to strengthen ‘near term’ climate targets and urges wealthier countries to help poorer countries battle the rising costs of climate change.”
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While the new deal aims to slow the effects of climate change, it doesn’t go far enough to satisfy the most ambitious goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to hold warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a threshold that, if breached, would bring the worst consequences of climate change.
Delegates from across the world began gathering in Glasgow on Oct. 31 in the midst of a global energy crunch to negotiate, having prepared nationally determined contributions toward achieving net-zero emissions.
Among other developments was an agreement between the United States and China to collaborate more on climate change issues this decade by sharing technology and encouraging decarbonization across their respective economies. That agreement, though, fell short in that it lacked any concrete pledges, emissions targets, or time frames from China, the world’s biggest polluter, leading critics to say the conference was a failure.
The two governments went into the conference under strained diplomatic conditions, with President Joe Biden and other administration officials criticizing China for not planning a larger presence in Glasgow and for not setting more aggressive targets for emissions cuts.
“The U.S. and China have no shortage of differences, but on climate, cooperation is the only way to get things done,” climate envoy John Kerry said.
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The conference yielded a number of other pledges, including a commitment by well over 100 nations to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030.
A group of nations, including the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Canada, also pledged to end government funding of overseas coal, oil, and gas projects by the end of next year and to prioritize clean energy finance instead, while a mix of national and local governments and major vehicle manufacturers agreed to “work towards” all new vehicle sales being zero-emissions by 2035 for “leading markets” and by 2040 for the rest of the world.
