Negotiators at the UN Climate Conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, appeared to have made a historic breakthrough with a first draft agreement calling for the phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies. It soon became clear that the wording of this pledge was set to become a battleground between nations threatened by climate change, and major oil and gas producers fighting to save subsidies.
Fears that such a clear language would be watered down were confirmed on Friday, when a newly released second draft changed the language around the contentious point. The clause now calls on countries to “accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies, and the adoption of policies, to transition towards low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up clean power generation and accelerating the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels.”
The first draft did not distinguish between types of fossil fuel subsidies, it just mentioned: “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels.”
Retiring coal was one of COP26’s main goals, and the conference has indeed produced an agreement counting 46 countries. But overall the issue isn’t too controversial, because coal is widely expected to be phased out by the markets as inefficient and expensive without too much effort from lawmakers. Ending subsidies for other fossil fuels like oil and natural gas, however, would provoke a more seismic shift in the energy markets.
Climate activists saw the first draft agreement as a starting point that needed to be built on rather than diminished. “This text needs to be strengthened not weakened,”said Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International, commenting on the first draft released on Wednesday. She mentioned she expected Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, would be trying to block the inclusion of fossil fuels subsidies phase out in the final draft, but that countries vulnerable to climate change would be fighting back. “People are fighting for their lives here,” she said.
Saudi Arabia, for its part, has denied any attempts to change the text to protect demand for fossil fuels. “What you have been hearing is a false allegation and a cheat and a lie,” Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al Saud told journalists on Thursday, as reported by AP.
Countries vulnerable to climate change have also been demanding unequivocal financial support to cover not just adaptation and mitigation measures to survive in a rapidly warming world, but also loss and damage already caused by global temperatures that, according to the latest report of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has already warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels due to human activity.
Finance remained a sticky point in the negotiations, with COP26 President Alok Sharma urging negotiators on Thursday to work together and find common ground to overcome the impasse on remaining issues. Sharma plans to end the conference at 6 p.m. local time on Friday.
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