World
A dead crab is stuck to the dry and cracked soil at Zawita Dam, located about 20 km from Duhok, on November 12, 2021. Photo: Ismael Adnan/AFP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Global climate talks wrapped up in Glasgow on Saturday with nearly 200 nations reaching what the head of the United Nations called a “compromise” deal with watered-down language on coal and fossil fuels. Amnesty International said world leaders “catastrophically betrayed humanity” by caving into the interests of corporations.
The COP26 final deal is “an important step, but it’s not enough,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “We must accelerate climate action to keep alive the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. It’s time to go into emergency mode.”
Guterres said the world must end fossil fuel subsidies, phase out coal, put a price on carbon, and protect vulnerable communities while making good on pledges of $100 billion in funding for developing nations - goals that he said were not achieved at the Glasgow conference.
The COP26 final deal is “an important step, but it’s not enough,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “We must accelerate climate action to keep alive the goal of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees. It’s time to go into emergency mode.”
Guterres said the world must end fossil fuel subsidies, phase out coal, put a price on carbon, and protect vulnerable communities while making good on pledges of $100 billion in funding for developing nations - goals that he said were not achieved at the Glasgow conference.
The #COP26 outcome is a compromise, reflecting the interests, contradictions & state of political will in the world today.
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) November 13, 2021
It's an important step, but it's not enough.
It's time to go into emergency mode.
The climate battle is the fight of our lives & that fight must be won. pic.twitter.com/NluZWgOJ9p
The final text agreed on at COP26 includes a last minute revision proposed by India to soften language around coal, calling on nations to escalate efforts to “phase down” the use of coal, rather than “phase out.”
COP26 President Alok Sharma described the deal as a “fragile win.”
“We have kept 1.5 alive,” he said, referring to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. “But I would still say that the pulse of 1.5 is weak.”
Summing up the two week conference, climate activist Greta Thurnberg tweeted: “The COP26 is over. Here’s a brief summary: Blah, blah, blah. But the real work continues outside these halls. And we will never give up, ever.”
Amnesty International said world leaders failed in their duty to protect humanity.
“Their failure to commit to maintaining the global temperature rise at 1.5°C will condemn more than half a billion people, mostly in the global south, to insufficient water and hundreds of millions of people to extreme heatwaves,” said Amnesty’s Secretary General Agnes Callamard.
“Despite this disastrous scenario, wealthy countries have failed to commit money towards compensating communities suffering loss and damage as a result of climate change. Neither have they committed to providing climate finance to developing countries primarily as grants, a decision that threatens poorer countries - the least equipped to cope with the climate crisis - with unsustainable levels of debt,” she added.
Advanced economies agreed to mobilize $100 billion per year for the Green Climate Fund to provide assistance for developing nations adapting to the effects of climate change, but have failed to do so. The final COP26 agreement expressed “deep regret” that the funding goal had not been met.
Iraq, the fifth most vulnerable nation to the effects of climate change, is hoping to access $10 billion over 10 years from the Green Climate Fund.
Iraq’s acting Environment Minister Jassim al-Falahi told Rudaw Baghdad is working to decrease its financial dependence on fossil fuels and “diversify the sources of the Iraqi economy and not rely on crude oil as a main source of the economy.”
Oil Minister Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar Ismail said on Saturday that exploration is underway at four oil fields in Anbar province, state media reported. The ministry is also hoping to attract international interest as it “expedites the development of Akaz gas field in the western desert of Anbar governorate,” according to a statement.
Updated at 11:04 am
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