The draft of an agreement – also called “cover decision” – that chalks out all important elements of the climate negotiations including how countries.
Will cut emissions to avoid temperature rises of above 1.5°C was published early on Wednesday on the sidelines of the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland.
Two drafts were released. One was released by the CMA, which is basically the group of nations that signed and ratified the Paris Agreement.
The group is also called “Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement”. The other draft was released by the COP, which is the Conference of the Parties. It is the CMA’s draft that mainly deals with the important decisions.
The text of the newly released draft on combating climate change had several changes over the previous version, making it appear weaker on certain fronts.
The draft, proposed by COP26 president Alok Sharma, underlines the Paris Agreement temperature goal of capping the rise in the average global temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and it also calls for pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
However, the text says the impact of climate change will be much lesser at the temperature increase of 1.5°C as compared to 2°C.
The draft recognises that keeping global warming to under 1.5°C requires meaningful and effective action by all parties, reflecting common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities in the light of different national circumstances.
The text doesn’t crisply, clearly articulate the 1.5-degree goal. It’s still a bit fuzzy,” said David Waskow, international climate director at the World Resources Institute (WRI).
Meeting the 1.5°C goal would require reducing global CO2 emissions by 45% by 2030 relative to the 2010 level and to reach net zero by around mid-century. But the aggregate greenhouse gas emission level, taking into account implementation of all nationally determined contributions (NDCs) submitted, is estimated to be 13.7% above the 2010 level in 2030, the draft says.
Waskow said a positive development in the draft was that the parties have been urged to come forward by 2022 with revisited, improved NDCs. It also has language on phasing out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies, which have been named specifically in the text.