By Nneka Nwogwugwu
About 200 countries signed a compromise deal on reaching global climate target on Saturday.
Here are key takeways from the new UN climate deal.
The annual Conference of the Parties, just held for the 26th time, is all about getting countries to gradually ratchet up their measures to defuse global warming.
The focus of the Glasgow talks was not to forge a new treaty but to finalize the one agreed to in Paris six years ago and to build on it by further curbing greenhouse gas emissions, bending the temperature curve closer to levels that don’t threaten human civilization.
Going into the Glasgow talks, most countries, including the United States, China and the 27 members of the European Union, declared new, more ambitious targets for reducing emissions.
Some, such as India, announced additional measures at the meeting itself. Side deals brokered by host country Britain covered issues such as reversing deforestation, boosting electric vehicles, phasing out coal, clamping down on methane emissions and unlocking investor cash for the fight against climate change.
Within the official negotiations, countries agreed to firmly focus on the most ambitious goal in the 2015 Paris accord, of keeping global warming from going beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit). Experts and vulnerable countries have long advocated that threshold, but some nations previously held onto the option of aiming for “well below 2 C (3.6 F).”
They also agreed to explicitly target coal use and fossil fuel subsidies, though the original proposals were greatly watered down.
In a bid to spur further ambition, major emitters will be asked to present new targets at the 2022 U.N. climate conference in Egypt.
