Negotiators pushed talks on how to tackle climate change into Saturday at the UN climate summit in Glasgow, as divisions remained on the phase-out of fossil fuels, and between rich and poor nations.
After almost two weeks of discussions, the focus of the UN COP26 in Glasgow has narrowed to a number of significant issues on coal, oil and gas and financial support for developing countries battling global warming.
Debate on the issues went past the scheduled 6pm Friday deadline and into the night, as ministers from almost 200 countries tried to hammer out a deal.
A further update to the latest draft texts for agreement — known as the “cover decisions” — is due on Saturday morning and the closing session is now set for that evening.
The latest texts, published early on Friday, tweaked a line for only
“unabated” coal power and “inefficient” subsidies for fossils fuels to be phased out. An earlier version had included all coal power and fossil fuels subsidies.
China’s chief climate negotiator Zhao Yingmin told a UN plenary meeting on Friday that the latest text had “some improvements” and provided a “good basis” for further discussions.
But he also said countries should be able to decide on their own timetable for setting new emissions targets and that more detail was needed on financing to help developing countries adapt to climate change.
China has been pushing back against proposals to have carbon-cutting targets revised annually rather than every five years.
Ayman Shasly, a senior negotiator for Saudi Arabia and chair of the powerful Arab Group at the conference who previously worked in China for Saudi Aramco, told the meeting that the current draft was “workable”.
“The one overarching discussion we are hearing is the ambition [for] keeping the 1.5 alive, that is a no-brainer, we all know that in the room, nobody disagrees in the room,” he said, referring to the rise in global temperatures. “The question is how we’re going to do that.”