U.N. climate chief Patricia Espinosa was not happy with a last-minute fight over coal that ended in a compromise at the Glasgow climate talks.
A woman walks past piles of coal burning after scavenging from an open-cast mine near Dhanbad, an eastern Indian city in Jharkhand state, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021. On Saturday, India asked for a crucial last minute-change to the final agreement at crucial climate talks in Glasgow, calling for the"phase-down" not the"phase-out" of coal power.
The world got a climate deal that outside experts said showed progress, but not success. It didn’t achieve any of the three U.N. goals: Pledges that would cut world carbon dioxide emissions by about half, $100 billion in yearly climate aid from rich countries to poor ones and half that money going to help the developing world adapt to the harms of a warming world.
One climate deal itself won't do the trick to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times, the U.N.'s overarching goal, Espinosa said. But she said it sets the stage, creating a carbon market, allowing more money to flow from rich to poor nations, even if poor nations were unsatisfied and said it isn't enough.Compromise was essential when a last minute proposal almost killed her possible deal.
And even the phrase “phase down” may mean more than what it seems Espinosa said: “When you say phase down you’re not saying what is the limit and therefore zero can be the limit.”
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