Delegates at high-stakes COP26 climate talks in Glasgow agreed on a global deal to boost climate action after last-minute wrangling. They also approved rules that would create the framework for a global carbon market.
The final version of the broad document, named the Glasgow Climate Pact, kept contentious proposals despite last-minute pushback from China and India — two of the world’s biggest emitters. That included language on reducing coal and fossil-fuel subsidies and coming back by next year with new climate targets. The proposals passed after an eleventh-hour watering down, negotiated in plain sight in the plenary room.
They also agreed to a set of sweeping rules on international carbon trading. Negotiators reached compromises on issues including how to avoid double-counting of credits and how to make sure a share of proceeds goes to helping poor nations adapt to a warming planet. Still, activists warned that those concessions could set back efforts to cut heat-trapping emissions.
Experts expressed cautious optimism that the measures would keep alive the Paris Agreement’s stretch goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels. But environmentalists maintained their criticism over the lack of finance commitments from rich countries, who are under pressure to do more to help developing nations decarbonize and deal with more extreme weather events.
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