UN Climate Summit in Glasgow Detail: Alok Sharma, the British President of the World Climate Summit, has postponed a possibly crucial plenary session of nearly 200 countries due to heated discussions. In Glasgow, Scotland, on Saturday afternoon, Sharma said it was necessary to give states “a little more time”. At this point, the start of the last meeting was probably delayed by several hours.
Hours of debate about global stop signals for coal and more aid payments to poorer countries thwarted the summit’s conclusion. The planned end was Friday evening.
[Wenn Sie aktuelle Nachrichten aus Berlin, Deutschland und der Welt live auf Ihr Handy haben wollen, empfehlen wir Ihnen unsere App, die Sie hier für Apple- und Android-Geräte herunterladen können.]
US Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry was seen holding intense discussions with delegates from other countries at the conference on Saturday. Groups of dozens of delegates were formed several times and were talking enthusiastically among themselves. At this point, the World Climate Conference had already made it over about 20 hours. Sharma scheduled a new session for 3:30 pm (CET).
Britain made it clear that it wanted to avoid another extension at night.
“It will end today,” Sharma said. Voting should be done on the final text in the afternoon. He thinks of an outcome that will not please everyone in every way, but will “move things forward”.
Meanwhile, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Germany pledged ten million euros in additional support for poor countries that have been harmed and harmed by the climate crisis. As with other European countries, a total of US$35 million will be raised, the German Press Agency in Glasgow learned from the German delegation on Saturday.
Neubauer disappointed with results
German climate activist Louisa Neubauer has sharply criticized the results of the talks so far. “You can see it as a failure,” she told Funke Media Group’s newspapers. “It’s not about navigating an interesting diplomatic process, but about mitigating a real catastrophe that’s happening here right now and getting people to safety.”
The fight against climate change is not an exciting mind game, but a humanitarian act. “But hardly anyone here who talks behaves like this,” criticized the climate movement’s representative Friday for Future. Neubauer agrees with the assessment of Greta Thunberg, the founder of the movement. Thunberg also accused the summit attendees of failure.
[Lesen Sie hier mehr über radikale Klimaaktivisten: Klimaschutz brutal – Anfang vom Ende einer friedlichen Bewegung? (T+)]
Glasgow should have been a “global turning point”, Neubauer told newspapers. “This should have been a moment when the richest countries in the world start fighting together especially for the 1.5 degree limit. It did not happen. This does not mean that it is no longer possible to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. But governments should have changed a lot at the convention. “Instead, he barely shook the status quo and dared to tackle the fossil fuel system only partially,” Neubauer said.
In particular, Neubauer named such a turning point as well as the accelerated exit from coal, oil and gas from industrialized countries as a condition for “very, very early payments” to poor countries. “After all, it was emissions from the richest countries that are causing unimaginable devastation in the affected regions.”
Environmental unions recently warned of a weakening of the planned final document at the last minute, calling on the federal government to put in more effort and warning that COP26 should not become an “air number.”
In the evening, in the midst of stalled talks, the heads of government of Great Britain and Italy, Boris Johnson and Mario Draghi, also spoke. After a phone call, the two said progress must be made by states to reduce emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases, with far insufficient commitments. They wanted to help bring COP26 to a positive conclusion “in these critical final hours.”
[Lesen Sie auch: Windkraft, nein Danke – warum Bürger gegen die Energiewende aufbegehren (T+)]
All conventions of previous years have been extended to the weekend. At the end of the massive meeting with nearly 40,000 delegates, about 200 states have to pass the final text unanimously.
Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schultz was cautiously optimistic until recently. There was already good progress on the table, the SPD politician said. For the first time in the history of the World Climate Conference, there is a chance to mention the coal phase-out in the final text. This is a “paradigm shift”.
The director and chief economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Otmar Edenhofer, complained that in the draft of the final document discussed, the formulations on the coal phase-out were waterlogged. He told the “Rhenish Post”: “To limit global warming to 1.5 degrees, we need a global phase-out of fossil fuels by 2050.
It is in danger with the current draft. ”At the same time, progress is being made in the climate conference. “I hope, for example, that with China and the United States joining forces, ambitious initiatives in the post-industrialized group of countries will become possible after the climate summit.” (dpa)
Devoted problem solver. Tv advocate. Avid zombie aficionado. Proud twitter nerd. Subtly charming alcohol geek.
