The draft comes on the final day of the nearly two-week conference but is not final — it will need all 197 parties in attendance to agree to it.
Although it retains a reference to fossil fuels, the language has been slightly watered down from the earlier version. The current draft calls for the acceleration of “the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels,” while the earlier draft didn’t include the word “inefficient.”
Still, if it is retained, even in its current form, it would be the first Conference of the Parties climate agreement to make any mention of the role of fossil fuels, the biggest contributor to the human-made climate crisis.
Two sources familiar with the talks told CNN on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and Australia were trying to have the article on fossil fuels removed.
The Friday draft agreement, published by the COP26 presidency, also retains language saying the world should be aiming to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
The document “recognizes that the impacts of climate change will be much lower at the temperature increase of 1.5 °C compared to 2 °C and resolves to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.”
To do that, “rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions” are required, the document says. That language is in line with the latest science, which shows the world must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid the climate crisis worsening and approaching a catastrophic scenario.
This is a developing story.