Negotiators at this year's U.N. climate talks were still struggling to assemble a series of draft decisions for government ministers to finalize during the second week of negotiations. Here's the state of play in four main areas halfway through the talks:
could be reflected in this final declaration. Even though only some countries signed on to each of those deals, others would be encouraged to add their signatures at a later date.
Affirming the goal of keeping global warming at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, compared to pre-industrial times, is also seen as important. With greenhouse gas emissions continuing to rise, host Britain has said it wants the Glasgow talks to “keep 1.5 C alive.” One way to achieve that would be to encourage rich polluters in particular to update their emissions-cutting targets every one or two years, rather than every five years as now required by the Paris accord.
Observers say Brazil and India may be willing to drop demands to count their old — but others say worthless — carbon credits amassed under previous agreements. The price for this might be that rich nations grant poor countries a share of proceeds from carbon market transactions to adapt to climate change. This has been a red line for the United States and the European Union until now.
A deal on Article 6 is seen as crucial because many countries and companies aim to cut their emissions to “net zero” by 2050. This requires balancing out any remaining pollution with an equal amount of carbon they can reliably say is captured elsewhere, such as through forests or by technological means.The Paris Agreement lets governments set their own emissions-cutting targets, and many of them are in the distant future.
Verifying that countries are doing what they committed to, and that their goals are backed up by realistic measures, is tricky. China in particular has bristled at the idea of having to provide data in formats set by other nations. Brazil and Russia, meanwhile, have resisted demands to lay out in greater detail the short-term measures they’re taking to meet their long-term goals.
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