COP26: World leaders fail to honour climate pledge

COP26: World leaders fail to honour climate pledge

Then they pushed for ending "unabated" coal burning and "inefficient" subsidies. A third draft suggested accelerating "efforts toward" their phase-out. By the time diplomats hammered out a text they could all agree to, the term was downgraded to a "phase-down" the use of unabated coal. The result of that semantic spat — watered down to levels well below what scientists say is needed to halt global warming to 1. 5 degrees Celsius (2. 7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures — was among the hardest-fought outcomes of two weeks of international negotiations to stop the planet hurtling closer towards catastrophic changes in the climate. But like many of the decisions coming out of the COP26 climate summit, the final agreement has been widely slammed as weak and ineffective. Diplomats at COP26 agreed on Saturday evening to do more to fight climate change and help vulnerable countries. Working a full day past the scheduled end of the conference, negotiators thrashed out an agreement to submit better plans next year to cut their emissions in 2030, finalised rules about trading emissions on carbon markets, and promised faster reductions in coal use and fossil fuel subsidies. But the final document avoided uncomfortable questions about