Fiona Harvey dissects the wording of the draft version of the document
The draft text is the most important document that will emerge from the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow. Unlike the last major climate conference, in Paris in 2015, what emerges here will not be a new treaty, but a series of decisions and resolutions that build on the Paris accord.
Those Cop decisions have legal force in the context of the Paris agreement, so this is a powerful document. But it is also a document that can only be accepted by the consensus of all parties, therefore much of the language is cautious and some is ambiguous or open to interpretation, to the frustration of the countries who want to move faster.
I. Science
1. Recognizes the importance of the best available science for effective climate action and policymaking;
II. Adaptation
5. Notes with serious concern the finding from the contribution of Working Group I to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report that every additional increment of global warming worsens climate and weather extremes and their impacts on people and nature;
III. Adaptation finance
14. Notes with serious concern that the current provision of climate finance for adaptation is insufficient to respond to worsening climate change impacts in developing country Parties;
IV. Mitigation
22. Reaffirms the Paris Agreement temperature goal of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels;
27. Emphasizes the urgent need for Parties to increase their efforts to collectively reduce emissions through accelerated action and implementation of domestic mitigation measures in accordance with Article 4, paragraph 2, of the Paris Agreement;
28. Decides to establish a work programme to urgently scale-up mitigation ambition and implementation during the critical decade of the 2020s;
30. Recalls Article 4, paragraphs 3 and 11, of the Paris Agreement, and urges Parties to revisit and strengthen the 2030 targets in their nationally determined contributions, as necessary to align with the Paris Agreement temperature goal by the end of 2022;
31. Requests the secretariat to produce an updated version of the synthesis report on nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement annually;
35. Invites Parties to regularly update strategies in line with the best available science;
36. Requests the secretariat to prepare a synthesis report on long-term low greenhouse gas emission development strategies under the Paris Agreement for consideration by the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement at its fourth session (November 2022);
40. Invites the Secretary-General of the United Nations to convene world leaders in 2023 to consider ambition to 2030;
41. Recognizes that enhanced support for developing country Parties will allow for higher ambition in their actions;
V. Finance, technology transfer and capacity-building for mitigation and adaptation
42. Urges developed country Parties to provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties with respect to both mitigation and adaptation, in continuation of their existing obligations under the Convention, and encourages other Parties to provide or continue to provide such support voluntarily;
VI. Loss and damage
60. Acknowledges that climate change has already and will increasingly cause loss and damage and, as temperatures rise, impacts from climate and weather extremes, as well as slow onset events, will pose an ever-greater social, economic and environmental threat;
VII Implementation
67. Resolves to move swiftly with the full implementation and delivery of the Paris Agreement;
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