Climate summit draft agreement urges faster phase-out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies

Governments are poised to express “alarm and concern” about global warming already underway and encourage one another to end their use of coal, according to a draft released Wednesday of the final document expected at the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland.

The early version of the document circulating at the talks also impresses on countries the need to cut carbon dioxide emissions by about half by 2030 even though pledges so far from governments don’t add up to that frequently stated goal.

In a significant move, the draft urges countries to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels,” but makes no explicit reference to ending the use of oil and gas. There has been a big push among developed nations to shut down coal-fired power plants, which are a major source of heat-trapping gases, but it remains a critical and cheap source of electricity for countries such as China and India.

While the language about moving away from coal is a first and important, the lack of a deadline for when countries must do so limits the pledge’s effectiveness, said Greenpeace International Director Jennifer Morgan, a longtime climate talks observer.

“This isn’t the plan to solve the climate emergency. This won’t give the kids on the streets the confidence that they’ll need,” Morgan said, referring to the youthful demonstrators who have protested in Glasgow during the conference.

The draft doesn’t yet include full agreements on the three major goals that the U.N. set going into the negotiations — and may disappoint poorer nations because of a lack of solid financial commitments from richer ones. Besides slashing emissions through phasing out coal, the goals include making sure that rich nations, as previously agreed, give poorer ones $100 billion yearly in climate aid and ensuring that half of the money goes to adapting to worsening global warming.

The draft does provide insight into the issues that need to be resolved in the last few days of the conference, which is scheduled to end Friday but may push past that deadline. A lot of negotiating and decision-making is yet to come, as whatever emerges from the meetings has to be unanimously approved by the nearly 200 nations attending.

The draft says the world should try to achieve “net zero [emissions] around mid-century.” That means that countries pump only as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as can be absorbed again through natural or artificial means.

It also acknowledges “with regret” that rich nations have failed to live up to the climate aid pledge.

Poorer nations, which need financial help both in developing cleaner energy sources and adapting to the worst of climate change, are angry that the promised assistance hasn’t materialized.

“Without financial support, little can be done to minimize its debilitating effects for vulnerable communities around the world,” Mohammed Nasheed, the speaker of the Maldives’ parliament and the ambassador for a group of dozens of countries most vulnerable to climate change, said in a statement.

He said the draft fails on key issues, including the financial aid and strong emission cuts.

“There’s much more that needs to be done on climate finance to give developing countries what they need coming out of here,” said Alden Meyer of the European think tank E3G.

The document reaffirms the goals set in Paris in 2015 of limiting warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, with a more stringent preferred target of trying to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) because the harms of climate change would therefore “be much lower.”

Highlighting the challenge of meeting those goals, the document “expresses alarm and concern that human activities have caused” about 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) “of global warming to date and that impacts are already being felt in every region.”

Small island nations, which are particularly vulnerable to warming, worry that too little is being done to stop warming at the 1.5-degree Celsius goal — and that allowing temperature increases up to 2 degrees Celsius would be catastrophic for their countries.

For small island states in the Pacific, climate change is the “single greatest threat to our livelihood, security and well-being. We do not need more scientific evidence nor targets without plans to reach them or talking shops,” Bruce Bilimon, the Marshall Islands’ health and human services minister, told fellow negotiators Wednesday. “The 1.5 limit is not negotiable.”

Separate draft proposals were also released on other issues being debated at the talks, including rules for international carbon markets and the frequency with which countries have to report on their efforts.

The draft calls on countries without national goals that align with the 1.5- or 2-degree warming limits to come back with more ambitious targets next year. Depending on how the language is interpreted, the provision could apply to most countries. Analysts at the World Resources Institute counted this element of the draft as a win for vulnerable countries.

“This is crucial language,” WRI International Climate Initiative Director David Waskow said Wednesday. “Countries really are expected and are on the hook to do something in that timeframe to adjust.”

Greenpeace’s Morgan said it would have been even better to set a requirement for new goals every year.

In a nod to one of the big issues for poorer countries, the draft vaguely “urges” developed nations to compensate developing countries for “loss and damage,” a phrase that some rich nations don’t like. But there are no concrete financial commitments.

“This is often the most difficult moment,” Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Development Program and former chief of the U.N.’s environment office, said of the state of the two-week talks.

“The first week is over — you suddenly recognize that there are a number of fundamentally different issues that are not easily resolvable. The clock is ticking,” he told the Associated Press.