Johnson's Dream Of A Cop26 Climate Deal Is Slipping Away

Hopes of keeping alive the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C were last night slipping through Boris Johnson’s fingers, as the Cop26 climate summit enters its final day without agreement on key issues and with negotiations believed to be going backwards on a crucial fossil fuel pledge.

- Andrew Woodcock

Hopes of keeping alive the chance of limiting global warming to 1.5C were last night slipping through Boris Johnson’s fingers, as the Cop26 climate summit enters its final day without agreement on key issues and with negotiations believed to be going backwards on a crucial fossil fuel pledge.

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Gutteres warned that the 1.5C threshold, which is seen as a maximum limit to avoid the most catastrophic consequences of climate change, is “on life support”.

The UK’s Cop26 president Alok Sharma said that negotiators faced a “monumental challenge” to reach a credible conclusion to the two-week summit, which was billed as humanity’s last chance to stave off the threat of devastating climate change. In a plea to all countries to “strain every sinew” to get an agreement that will make a real difference, Mr Sharma warned: “Time is running out.”

Negotiators were working until late last night on a new draft agreement, expected to appear early on the final scheduled day of the summit.

Agreement was reached on assistance for vulnerable countries in adapting to climate change, and there was said to be progress on the issue of recompensing them for past loss and damage. But on the crucial issue of finance, countries remained far apart, with little progress towards the UN’s call for a fivefold or even tenfold increase in rich-world support by 2030.