Climate finance to carbon: The hits and misses of COP26 talks in Glasgow – Business Standard

Climate action has two parts: mitigation, which requires countries to cut back on fossil fuels, protect and expand forests, and promote clean infrastructure; and adaptation, which includes building critical infrastructure to deal with extreme climate events such as cyclonic storms, droughts and floods.

The $100 billion target itself is now inadequate — developing countries are estimated to need $600 billion a year from 2020 to 2050 to decarbonise just their energy sectors.

India, Indonesia and Bangladesh and other countries in the G77 grouping, as well as China, had called for a “Glasgow loss and damage facility” through which historical emitters would pay poor countries to remedy the loss and damage caused by extreme weather events such as cyclones.

Countries did agree to operationalise the Santiago Network of Loss and Damage set up in 2019, at the COP25 in Madrid, to provide technical support to developing countries to avert the damage caused by extreme weather.

The Glasgow pact has closed some of the loopholes in the Clean Development Mechanism for carbon trading, such as one that allowed double counting of carbon credits for reduced emissions.

Paris rulebook guidelines on transparency and accountability hold countries accountable to their pledges and on reporting updates on their emissions.

In a new move, the Glasgow pact asks major emitters of greenhouse gases, such as the US, EU and China, to explain to the UN, in 12 months, how their economy-wide policies and plans are aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

By October 2021, more than 140 countries–nearly 70% of Paris Agreement signatories that account for 57% of global emissions–had submitted their updated NDC targets.

During the negotiations, 450 financial institutions in 45 countries said they would invest $130 trillion for clean energy and net-zero emissions under the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero .

As many as 103 countries have signed the Global Methane Pledge that targets a 30% cut in methane emissions by 2030 from 2020 levels, but India, China and Russia have not signed the pledge.

India has said it will move to electric vehicles by 2030, while more than 100 entities, including countries, such as Kenya and the Netherlands, signed the Glasgow Accord on Zero Emissions Vehicles to phase out new fossil fuel vehicles by 2040.

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