Fragile win in Glasgow

COP26 kicks can down the road to Cairo

After a marathon negotiating session that extended far longer than scheduled, the 200-odd countries that had assembled in Glasgow for the UNFCCC Conference of Parties, or COP26, reached agreement. In a major step forward for the climate movement, the agreement specified that anthropogenic climate change was being caused by the use of fossil fuels, and therefore countries needed to frame policies to move away from dependence on them. The delay was, according to many reports, caused by objections from Indian negotiators, who sought to change language related to the use of coal in particular. The United Kingdom’s cabinet-rank official who was steering COP26 on behalf of the host country, Alok Sharma, verbally indicated at the close of COP26 that the language of the agreement was that coal was to be “phased down” and not “phased out”.

While India’s continued requirement for coal-fired power over the next decades is not in question and should indeed have been clearly stated at COP26, nevertheless it is unclear why the official negotiators allowed themselves once again to be framed as the cause of a breakdown in consensus — when multiple other countries, including the People’s Republic of China, will similarly be dependent on coal in the future. While the language related to fossil fuels is something of a disappointment, so is the quality of agreement on increased financing for carbon emission mitigation and adaptation. Mitigation is economic restructuring that would lead to reduction in global warming-causing emission, and adaptation is the equivalent changes that are needed in order to live with the warming that is already happening.
 

For many developing countries, financing for both mitigation and adaptation is equally important; but climate finance from the developed world has both been less than promised and excessively focused on mitigation. Here, as elsewhere in the agreement, there was what Mr Sharma has called a “fragile win”: Namely, that there is now an agreement that historical polluters will enter into “a dialogue” on “arrangements for the funding of activities to avert, minimise and address loss and damage”. While this is far short of a commitment to adaptation finance, the very acknowledgement of the “loss and damage” being caused by historical emission is a vital step forward. The agreement will also fund the Santiago Network, which is supposed to build technical expertise about climate adaptation in vulnerable nations. There were also acknowledgements in the final text that climate finance from the developed world would have to be doubled and that all emitters would need to return with even more ambitious and updated targets within a year.

In other words, COP26 has shifted some additional pressure on to COP27, to be held next year in Cairo. Before then, substantial moves will have to be made in both India and in the developed world if COP27 is to succeed. India, for example, should have a clear calculation to present on how it is moving away from its current combination of fuel taxes and fossil fuel subsidies to a more straightforward carbon tax that allows for more transparent revenue for the government and also eases the domestic economy’s green transition. It should be able to present clear systems for running down its coal capacity in return for financial commitments, as several nations in Southeast Asia and Africa did this year. But it must also keep up pressure on the developed world regarding deeper emission cuts and the sharing of technology and finance.