Cambridge Researcher Natalie Jones is reporting for The Earth Negotiations Bulletin. In their highlights from the main proceedings of Thursday 11th November at COP26, they emphasised the key developments in negotiations as:
- The Presidency’s Stocktaking session - COP26 President Alok Sharma noted with the negotiations “we are not there yet” and stated his recognition that parties were not entirely satisfied with current texts.
- The most contentious issues are still under negotiation, these include:
- Finance - particularly on establishing the processes for deciding and contributing to a collective quantified finance goal, and long-term finance. Ministerial consultations on finance convened in the late evening.
- Article 6 (Co-operative approaches e.g., carbon markets) - the key sticking point remaining is the enhanced transparency framework. As highlighted in yesterday’s article, finance and the transparency framework are interlinked issues. Developing countries required financial support to uphold transparent reporting on their obligations, hence they want financial assurances before committing to reporting tables.
- Egypt was confirmed as the 2022 COP host, and the United Arab Emirates for COP28 in 2023.
- It is not expected that the COP President’s goal of ending by 6pm on Friday 12th November will be achieved.
Other developments around the venue on cities, regions and built environment day included:
- Both the Global Climate Action’s campaigns emphasise reducing emissions (‘Race to Zero’) and building resilience (‘Race to Resilience’). 149 countries joined the campaign - demonstrating subnational actors’ international commitment.
- The Global Climate Action’s closing event (‘Racing for a better world’) included both Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, and Nicola Sturgeon, First minister of Scotland. The latter asked rich countries to pay their debts to poorer and vulnerable countries through loss and damage funding.
For more detail, read their full daily report for November 11th.
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Cambridge on the Ground
PhD student Friederike Hartz remains in Glasgow (though commuting from Edinburgh at 5am in the morning!) and has continued to feed back her highlights, including seeing Nicola Sturgeon and Mary Robinson!
My highlight was a side-event on Loss and Damage which involved a speech by Nicola Sturgeon. She announced in the speech that Scotland will double the amount of finance that they want to give to Loss and Damage from £1 million to £2 million. Her speech was very powerful and earned a lot of applause. She said that this is “one of the most important gatherings of the century…“ and she said that “Those that have pumped emissions into the atmosphere….have responsibility …not out of charity but as an act of reparation. (applause)”. Also in the picture is Mr. Ramsahay Prasad Yadav, Minister of Forests and Environment, Government of Nepal who spoke about Loss and Damage in Nepal and Gabriela Bucher, who said that “this is a crisis creates by the haves and experienced by the have not’s”
After 13hours at the conference today I saw Mary Robinson giving an interview. A little bit starstruck!
If you would like to be involved with our COP26 coverage or have any questions, please email Ella Palmer, ep541@cam.ac.uk.
