The Latest: Chair of climate summit wants talks in high gear
The chair of this year’s U.N. climate conference called on negotiators from almost 200 countries to engage in “another gear shift” as they try to reach agreement on outstanding issues a day before the talks are scheduled to end
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Your support makes all the difference.The Latest on the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow:
GLASGOW, Scotland — The chair of this year’s U.N. climate conference called on negotiators from almost 200 countries to engage in “another gear shift” as they try to reach agreement on outstanding issues a day before the talks are scheduled to end.
British official Alok Sharma said Thursday that fresh drafts released overnight on a number of crunch topics “represent a significant step further toward the comprehensive, ambitious and balanced set of outcomes, which I hope parties will adopt by consensus at the end of tomorrow.”
Sharma said he was “under no illusion” that the texts being considered would wholly satisfy all countries at this stage but thanked negotiators for the “spirit of cooperation and civility” they had shown so far.
“We are not there yet,” he said, adding that he aimed to get a fresh draft of the overarching decision released early Friday.
“Today must represent another gear shift when negotiators finalize outstanding,” Sharma said. “The world is watching us and their willingness to work together and reach consensus. And we know that we cannot afford to fail them”
U.N. climate talks have rarely ended on time in the past.
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GLASGOW, Scotland — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) is “on life support” as negotiators at a U.N. conference work out the final agreement.
In an exclusive interview Thursday with The Associated Press, Guterres said the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow Scotland “are in a crucial moment” and need to accomplish more than securing a weak deal that participating nations agree to support.
“The worst thing would be to reach an agreement at all costs by a minimum common denominator that would not respond to the huge challenges we face,” Guterres said.
That’s because the overarching goal of limiting warming since pre-industrial times to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F) by the end of the century “is still on reach but on life support,” Guterres said. The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit), leaving less than a degree before the threshold is hit.
He told the AP that talks in Glasgow so far have not met any of the U.N.’s three goals, but he added that “until the last moment, hope should be maintained.” The conference is set to end on Friday.
A U.S.-China agreement announced Wednesday provided some hope of the negotiations yielding significant progress, he said.
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GLASGOW, Scotland — China and the United States have agreed to redouble efforts to fight climate change with “concrete actions,” in a joint statement announced Wednesday in climate talks in Glasgow.
The two biggest carbon polluting countries said their deal calls for “enhanced climate action in the 2020s” using the 2015 Paris climate deal’s guidelines, including a new stronger emission cuts target in 2025. China promised to follow the U.S. lead and crack down on methane.
The agreement calls for “concrete and pragmatic’’ regulations in decarbonization, reducing methane emissions and fighting deforestation.
“Both sides recognize that there is a gap between the current effort and the Paris agreement,” China chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua said in announcing the agreement. “So we will jointly strengthen climate action and cooperation with respect to our respective national situations."
“We both see that the challenge of climate change is an existential and severe one,’’ Xie said. “We will take our due responsibilities and work together.’’
Xie said using global carbon markets “will be highly helpful” in emission cutting, but that involves a negotiating issue that hasn’t been solved for six years and still hasn’t been settled in talks in Glasgow.
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Follow all AP stories on climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate.