UN climate conference extended due to national differences / Article

UN climate conference extended due to national differencesUldis Ķezberis / Latvian Radio00:00 / 02:50

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Nearly 200 national delegations in Glasgow, Scotland, discussed for two weeks how to keep the 2015 Paris Climate Conference on an average global temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial revolution.

The climate conference was due to end on the evening of Friday, 12 November, but this did not happen because no final agreement was reached. So the talks continued all night.

The draft agreement, published on Friday, urged countries to close coal-fired power plants that are not equipped with carbon capture technologies to reduce their pollution. The document also called for the elimination of inefficient subsidies for other fossil fuels.

Environmentalists criticized the agreement, while some experts emphasized that it was the first time that coal had been singled out in a UN document of this kind.

China and Saudi Arabia were among the countries that wanted to remove references to fossil energy subsidies from the document.

Meanwhile, a group of developing countries, led by India, have called on rich countries to commit to more financial support to enable them to switch from fossil fuels to more environmentally friendly energy sources and adapt to climate change.

The funds promised by richer countries to poorer countries to combat climate change remain one of the most controversial issues. In 2009, developed countries pledged $ 100 billion or € 87 billion a year to poor countries by 2020, but that goal was not met.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Friday called on the rich country to allocate more money to help developing countries.

“The developed world must make this financial commitment to those who are on the path to development and who are not historically responsible for CO2 emissions. “Money needs to be allocated to help developing countries make the necessary changes,” Johnson said.

These requests were heard because

On Saturday morning, the leadership of the climate conference published a new version of the agreement, calling on rich countries to double funding to help poor countries adapt to climate change.

The document also promises to hold high-level meetings on climate finance in 2022, 2024 and 2026.

Climate finance is intended for a variety of purposes, from weather warning systems to large-scale renewable energy projects.

Aloks Sharma, president of the Glasgow conference, hopes that the final version of the agreement will be approved on Saturday afternoon.

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