Photo: REUTERS / copyright
Although the Glasgow Climate Pact is an ambitious attempt to curb rising temperatures on the planet, the last-minute dispute over coal cast a shadow over the agreement.
India, supported by China, pushed for that key commitment to be watered down. The specific request was to change the phrase “phasing out” in the document to “phasing out” .
That was undoubtedly a blatant display of geopolitical force that left developing countries and island states with little choice but to accept the changes.
The new pact comes just days after another notable milestone reached by China, as last Wednesday, the Xinhua news agency announced that the country had produced more coal than ever in a single day.
According to the report, only that day some 12 million tons of material whose consumption will represent carbon dioxide emissions roughly equivalent to those produced by a country like Ireland for a whole year.
This is the reality d of the carbon that impacts our atmosphere every day.
Seen like this, the agreement reached on Saturday after long negotiations, it seems a simple band-aid in the face of the deep wound that threatens life on the planet.
However, the negotiators who worked day and night to reach the pact would not be, at all, in accordance with this assessment.
Progress
The final agreement is quite progressive and foresees that the countries reintroduce reinforced plans next year.
Also, the text stands out for naming coal as the cause of the problem for the first time in 30 years of UN diplomacy.
There is also a significant duplication of funds to help poor countries adapt to the shocks climate change, as well as the prospect of a new fund with $ 1 trillion a year from 2025, compared to the current target of US $ 100. 000 million a year.
Observers also claim that there is the “start of a breakthrough” in the key question of the “loss and damage” , the mechanism signed in 2013 which states that the richest countries must compensate the poorest for the effects of climate change to which they cannot adapt.
Shadows
Despite these Hopefully, the agreement also has some important shortcomings.
One of them is the clauses misleading that will allow some countries to avoid updating their emission reduction plans based on “different national circumstances”.
There is concern that some of the largest developing economies, such as India and China, will use this clause to avoid updating their plans next year.
To the countries s that are on the front lines there is still too much emphasis on reducing carbon emissions at the expense of helping them adapt to a changing climate.
Some of the real world promises signed here were beyond laughable.
South Korea was named as a country that should abandon coal in the decade of 2030 , but the Seoul government timidly pointed to a clause in the compromise that said “in the decade of 2030 or as soon as possible after ”to say they will stop burning coal in 2049.
Along the same lines, the launch of a global initiative to abandon the engines of gasoline and diesel was a wet firecracker because the main Auto manufacturing countries, such as Germany and the United States, did not join.
The 1.5 degree target
But the main question that arises is whether the global package agreed in Glasgow will prevent the world from heating up more than 1.5 degrees , the stated objective of the COP 26.
And although that We do not have an answer yet, we can think with certainty that the text will help to rekindle the sense of international collaboration very damaged in recent years by nationalistic tendencies around the world.
Ultimately, this covenant — by defective Bear and late as it may be – keeps the flame alive in the hope that temperatures can be kept under control this century, between 1.8 and 2.4 degrees .
But on the other hand, that’s a terrifying prospect in a world that’s already warmed up just over half that amount, with massive impacts across the planet.
The sad reality, like the record production of coal in China, is that the atmosphere only responds to emissions and not to decisions made at a conference such as COP 30.
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The image above is from Getty Images.
The display of colors representing the weather is courtesy of the teacher Ed Hawkins and the university of Reading.
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