Global Haggling Over Draft Text Begins in Glasgow: COP26 Daily
The COP26 logo in Glasgow. climate conference logo.
Photo by Christoph Soeder/picture alliance via Getty Images)
The burning of fossil fuels is, by far, the source of most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It’s the top reason for the climate predicament, and not something in doubt among the more than 25,000 delegates at COP26. Yet the term “fossil fuel” has never made it into the official document published at the end any of the two dozen global climate talks since 1995.
That omission looked like it might finally end. A first draft circulated at 6 a.m. on Wednesday, in preparation for the final statement expected to be hammered out by the weekend, had an eye-catching statement. It called on countries to “accelerate phasing-out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels.”