Updated COP26 Draft Plan Waters Down Key Language On Fossil Fuels And NDCs
With negotiations scheduled to finish later today (12 November) at COP26, a new draft plan has been unveiled with subtle yet important changes, such as "requesting" that nations submit updated climate plans by the end of 2022, but has watered down facets on fossil fuels.
In what is largely a game of spot the difference between this document and previous daft, which was published on Wednesday, negotiators have made a few important tweaks to the language issued in the document.
The first version also marked a historic moment for COP26 negotiation texts. It called upon nations “to accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels”. In the updated version, the language has been watered down slightly. It now only calls for the phase-out of “unabated” coal power and “inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels”. It comes after nations such as Saudi Arabia lobbied for the reference of fossil fuels to be removed from the documents altogether.