Photo: Sean Gallup / Getty Images
After more than 13 days between agreements, meetings and some disappointments, the COP 31 finally reached a “historic” agreement according to Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the host country of the climate summit. Despite last-minute modifications, the experts looked at the final text with some optimism in order to reduce global emissions and keep the temperature rise to the famous 1.5 degrees. by the middle of this century .
The president of the climate summit of the UN, former British minister Alok Sharma, denied that the changes in the agreement regarding the end of this mineral forced at the last minute by India and China suppose “a failure” and assured that the text as a whole is “a historic achievement.”
In an interview with the BBC after the event closed on Saturday – a day later than planned – Sharma said that the pact approved by 80 countries, which includes a mandate to increase by 2022 the emission reduction targets for 2030, allows to “keep within reach” the goal raised and n the Paris Agreement of 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees this century.
He also recalled that the regulations were completed to fully implement the Parisian treaty, especially Article 6, relative to carbon markets, and obtained “more money for countries vulnerable to climate change” .
It is the first time in COP editions in which it is determined that the burning of coal is one of the main reasons for climate change. This is an unprecedented achievement, even the Paris Agreement does not consider coal and other fossil fuels as the causes of global warming .
“I think we can affirm that we are on the way to eradicate the coal in history”, maintained Sharma, to underline that it is the first time that a document of a climate negotiation includes references to hydrocarbons.
“ In the end, China and India are the they will have to explain themselves to the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change , and the reaction of these countries to the proposed change in language has already been seen ”, declared.
Last Minute Modification
In an intervention in extremis, just when the Glasgow Pact, the result of two weeks of intense negotiations in the Scottish city, was going to be approved, India, apo yada by China, forced a change in the wording of the article 36 , which called for “accelerating efforts to eliminate carbon without carbon capture processes and of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. ”
With the proposed change, finally approved grudgingly by the plenary, the “elimination” is replaced by a “progressive reduction” .
The Executive Secretary of the Framework Convention for UN climate change, Patricia Espinosa, pointed out that, although it may be disappointing, the change in language should be seen as “a diplomatic solution.”
For her part, the executive director of Greenpeace International, Jennifer Morgan, said that the final agreement “is tame, it is weak and the 1.5C target barely is alive, but a signal has been sent that the era of coal is ending. And that matters “.
Morgan opined that the maneuver in extremis of the major polluters “does not change the signal sent at this COP that the coal era is ending” .
“It is in the interest of all countries, including those that still burn coal, to make the transition to clean renewable energy, and rich states must support that change”, He said.
For their part, several nature conservation organizations appreciated that the rules that allow countries and also private entities have been clarified trade with carbon credits.
The Glasgow Climate Pact approved at the COP 26 -that started on 31 of October and was due to end on 12 November – has not satisfied many environmentalists, in among them the youth leader Greta Thunberg, who has described it as more “blah blah blah “.
“If we do not achieve immediate, drastic and unprecedented cuts in annual emissions at source, it means that we are failing in the climate crisis. ‘Small steps in the right direction’, ‘some progress’ or ‘slow victory’ equals defeat “, He wrote on Twitter.
With information from EFE
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