COP26: Draft deal calls for stronger carbon cutting targets by end of 2022

                  

Countries are being urged to strengthen their carbon-cutting targets by the end of 2022 in a draft agreement published at the COP26 Glasgow climate summit.

The document says vulnerable nations must get more help to cope with the deadly impacts of global warming.

It also says countries should submit long-term strategies for reaching net-zero by the end of next year.

Critics have said the draft pact does not go far enough but others welcomed its focus on the 1.5C target.

The document, which has been published by the UK COP26 presidency, will have to be negotiated and agreed by countries attending the talks.

Scientists have warned that keeping temperature rises to 1.5C - beyond which the worst impacts of climate change will be felt - requires global emissions to be cut by 45% by 2030 and to zero overall by mid-century.

With the world off track to meet the goal, the draft document urges countries to "revisit and strengthen" the targets for cutting emissions by 2030 in their national plans to align them with the Paris Agreement goal of well below 2C or 1.5C by the end of 2022.

Loss and damage - an issue of key importance to the developing world - has been included in the draft, calling for more support from developed countries and other organisations to address the damage caused by extreme weather and rising seas in vulnerable nations.

It also recognises that more finance is needed for developing countries beyond the long-promised $100bn a year by 2020, which will not be delivered until at least 2022.

But campaigners said these parts of the text were weak and were essentially a "box ticking exercise".

The document also calls on countries to accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels - but has no firm dates or targets on this issue. 

Countries that have not yet submitted new or updated national climate action plans - known as nationally determined contributions, which they were supposed to submit ahead of COP26 - are being urged to do so ahead of the next COP in November 2022, which is likely to be in Egypt.

The document also asks UN secretary general Antonio Guterres to convene world leaders in 2023 to consider how efforts to reach targets for 2030 are shaping up.