London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Oct 10, 2025

"With Deep Regret": COP26 Talks Stumble On Climate Cash "Cliffhanger"

"With Deep Regret": COP26 Talks Stumble On Climate Cash "Cliffhanger"

A new draft text, released deep into overtime by the Glasgow summit's UK presidency, urged nations to accelerate efforts to phase-out of unfiltered coal and "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies.

Sleep-deprived COP26 negotiators on Saturday struggled to bridge deep divisions holding up a deal to deliver the emissions cuts and financial support needed to avert the accelerating disaster of climate change.

A new draft text, released deep into overtime by the Glasgow summit's UK presidency, urged nations to accelerate efforts to phase-out of unfiltered coal and "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies.

Large emitters such as China, Saudi Arabia and Russia had tried to remove the mention of polluting fuels, according to delegates.

But after resistance from rich nations led by the United States and European Union, the draft text omitted any reference to a specific finance facility for "loss and damage" -- the mounting cost of global warming so far -- which has been a key demand of poorer nations.

The text noted "with deep regret" that wealthy nations had also failed to stump up a separate annual sum of $100 billion they promised over a decade ago, but said only that it would come by 2023.

Greenpeace International chief Jennifer Morgan told AFP that the language on fossil fuels "is far from what is needed but sends a signal- I dare countries to take that out of the text right now".

"The US has to support the most vulnerable on the issue of loss and damage. They cannot avoid this issue any longer. Nor can the European Union," she added.

"I would call on President (Joe) Biden to do what's right, and support the most vulnerable in helping them deal with their losses."

The US and EU delegations did not immediately respond to requests for a comment.

'Bullied'


Saleemul Huq, director of the ICCCAD climate NGO, said the British COP26 presidency had been "bullied" overnight into rejecting specific loss and damage funding.

"The UK's words to the vulnerable countries have been proven to be totally unreliable," he said.

One observer party to discussions told AFP they expected developing nations to "push back and try to turn the dialogue into something that is not endless blah, blah, blah".

Delegates from nearly 200 countries are in Glasgow to try to hammer out how to implement the 2015 Paris Agreement goals to limit temperature rises to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius.

The third round of revisions since Wednesday came after frenetic haggling that stretched overnight past the summit's scheduled conclusion on Friday evening.

Countries already battered by climate disasters such as record-breaking drought, flooding and storms are demanding they be compensated separately for loss and damage, and have made it a red line issue.

However, a proposal to include the creation of a dedicated facility to administer financial support was quashed by historical emitters, delegates said.

In its place was a line offering "dialogue to discuss the arrangements for the funding of activities" on loss and damage.

Amadou Sebory Toure, head of the G77+China negotiating bloc, told AFP the proposal was "put forward by the entire developing world, representing six of every seven people on Earth".

He said separate finance was needed "to effectively respond to our needs to address the loss and damage being inflicted on our peoples, our communities, our economies, by the impacts of climate change".

Alden Meyer, senior associate at climate policy think tank E3G, said loss and damage talks were a "cliffhanger moment" that could jeopardise the UK's goal of wrapping the summit up later Saturday.

Developing nations say it is unfair for the summit to produce an unbalanced agreement heavily weighted toward "mitigation" -- how economies can ditch fossil fuels by 2050.

They want specific instruction on how they can meet the bill of decarbonising while also adapting to the natural disasters supercharged by global warming.

Before the Friday night deadline came and went, hundreds of indigenous and other protesters marched through the summit venue demanding the rich world honour its promises.

Pledges insufficient


The summit began with a bang as world leaders came armed with a string of headline announcements, from a commitment to slash methane emissions to a plan to save rainforests.

Negotiations received a further boost on Wednesday when the United States and China -- the two largest emitters -- unveiled a joint climate action plan, although it was light on detail.

But current plans to cut national emissions, all told, would lead to 2.7C of heating, according to the UN, far in excess of the Paris target.

The latest draft text requested countries to come back next year with updated climate pledges.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
×