The pomp and promises that marked the initial days of the COP26 climate conference here are giving way to the difficult task of hammering out an agreement on what nations will actually do together to combat global warming — and how.
GLASGOW, Scotland — As the second and final week of the most-watched international climate summit in years begins, delegates face familiar but vexing problems about how the world can agree on policies to deal with widespread deforestation, warming temperatures, rising seas and other dimensions of global climate change at stake. Central to all that is the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars.
There was the new coalition of nations working to halt deforestation, another to curb the powerful greenhouse gas methane, and still another promising to stop spending tax dollars to fund overseas fossil fuel projects. Financial giants, meanwhile,to help the world hit net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.
The Paris accord set key thresholds of warming that world leaders agreed not to cross, most important the 1.5 Celsius target. It also created a voluntary framework to translate those lofty goals into practical policies. U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry, for one, remains an optimist. He has said he supports activists pushing leaders to do more, and shares their frustration. But he also sees the usefulness in the lumbering and sometimes messy climate talks, where countries large and small have a voice.“The alternative is you don’t say anything, you don’t do anything. You don’t have any promises. You don’t have any commitments,” he told reporters Friday. “And you’re sitting there just waiting for the deluge.
Farhana Yamin, a prominent climate lawyer and longtime adviser to developing and vulnerable nations who has attended numerous COP summits, said negotiators in the coming week must find a way to back up all the recent promises with concrete rules.
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