Negotiators at the this year’s UN climate talks pored over fresh proposals on Saturday for sealing a deal that could credibly be said to advance worldwide efforts to tackle global warming.
British officials chairing the talks in Glasgow, Scotland, released new draft agreements after shuttle diplomacy continued past the official on Friday evening deadline. US climate envoy John Kerry and his Chinese counterpart, Xie Zhenhua, both indicated cautious optimism late on Friday that the negotiations were moving forward.
A proposal for the overarching decision retains contentious language calling on countries to accelerate “efforts towards the phase-out of unabated coal power and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.”
But in a new addition, the text says nations will recognize “the need for support towards a just transition” — a reference to calls from those working in the fossil fuel industry for financial support as they wind down jobs and businesses.
Alok Sharma, the British official chairing the talks, said he hoped countries would clinch an ambitious agreement in Glasgow.
“I hope the colleagues will rise to the occasion,” Sharma told The Associated Press as he walked into the conference venue. Some advocacy groups said the current proposals were not strong enough.
“Here in Glasgow, the world’s poorest countries are in danger of being lost from view, but the next few hours can and must change the course we are on,” Oxfam senior policy adviser Tracy Carty said. “What’s on the table is still not good enough.” But the possibility of having fossil fuels explicitly mentioned for the first time in a decision coming out of the U.N.’s annual Conference of the Parties meeting, or COP, was well-received by some environmentalists.
“It’s weaker and compromised, but we see it as a bridgehead, a bit of a breakthrough,” Greenpeace Executive Director Jennifer Morgan said.
“We will have to fight like hell to keep it in there and have it strengthened in the coming hours,” Morgan said, adding that there were “a clutch of countries really seeking to strike that line from the deal.”
Divisions remained on the issue of financial support sought by poor countries for the disastrous impacts of climate change they will increasingly suffer in future — the United States and European Union, two of the world’s biggest historic emitters, continued to have deep reservations.
Mohammed Quamrul Chowdhury of Bangladesh, a lead negotiator for less-developed countries, ticked off the ways that vague wording in the latest draft fell short of committing wealthier countries to putting new money on the table for countries struggling with climate damage.