(VOVWORLD) -The COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference has just published a second draft of the joint statement with some modifications compared to the first draft published a day earlier.
The latest draft was released on Friday, the last day of COP26, but it is not final yet as it needs all 197 participants to agree on.
It appears to weaken the language around the phasing out of fossil fuels while the paragraphs about financial assistance to poor countries are more emphasized. An earlier version of the draft had clearly stated that the world should pledge to stop subsidies for fossil fuels and phase them out. Now the text includes the word “unabated” before coal, and the phase-out of “inefficient” subsidies for fossil fuels.
“(COP26) calls upon parties to accelerate the development, deployment and dissemination of technologies and the adoption of policies for the transition towards low-emission energy systems, including by rapidly scaling up clean power generation and accelerating the phase-out of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels,” the latest draft read.
The previous draft only emphasized the need for financial support for developing countries, while the new draft regrets that the target of mobilizing 100 billion USD per year by 2020 has not been achieved yet.
There remained much disagreement around the regulation of the carbon market, the time frame for updating commitments to cut emissions or payments to vulnerable countries.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called on governments pick up the pace and show the necessary ambition on mitigation, adaptation and finance in a balanced way.