COP26: a fight is brewing for a key point of the Glasgow agreement

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(CNN) -

With just over 24 hours to go to the end of the COP26 climate summit, more efforts are urgently needed to reach an agreement.

A new version of the agreement is expected to be released sometime Thursday night, but COP26 President Alok Sharma made it clear that the negotiations are far from over, so don't be surprised if they continue beyond the expected deadline.

This is what happened on Thursday.

The call of the president of COP26

Sharma lobbies for the Glasgow agreement to have substance, knowing full well that history will judge the summit based on the final text.

On Thursday, he told delegates that he was concerned about the number of issues that had not yet been agreed.

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"I know how hard they are working. But today should represent another change of gear as negotiators complete pending technical work and ministers increase their commitment," he told delegates.

"And I remind colleagues again that COP26 is scheduled to close at the end of tomorrow."

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The first version of the draft agreement was published on Wednesday, and it was not very well received by many climate experts and activist groups, who criticized it for being vague and not ambitious enough.

And that was before negotiators in some of the biggest fossil fuel producing countries stepped up their efforts to try to smooth it out.

Climate finance - which involves rich countries helping developing countries cut emissions and adapt - looms as one of the main sticking points, and Sharma urged delegates to find common ground.

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"Our leaders were clear at the beginning of the summit. They want us to show ambition and build consensus, and yet we continue to see that in the finance (trading) rooms we have a hard time moving forward even on some routine technical issues. Hey, my friends. , it can't be the case today, "Sharma said.

A fight is brewing on a key issue

A group of nations known as the Group of Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC), including China and India, called for the entire section on COP26 to be removed from the draft text of the mitigation of climate change, in a sample of the fight that remains to be waged one day before the talks close.

The mitigation section of the draft includes text on reducing greenhouse gas emissions enough to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, versus the 2 degrees Celsius ceiling of the Accord. Paris.

It also urges countries to accelerate the update of their emissions commitments by the end of 2022.

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Bolivia's chief negotiator Diego Pacheco, who represents the group of like-minded developing countries (known by its acronym in English, LMDC), said on Thursday that the countries believed that the developed world was trying to transfer its responsibilities for the climate crisis to the developing world.

"We asked the presidency to remove the mitigation section entirely," Pacheco told a news conference in Glasgow.

The group does not believe that developing countries should have the same emissions deadlines and ambitions as rich nations.

Some civil society groups present at the conference have criticized the LMDC's position, calling it a deliberately exaggerated request to gain influence in the talks.

The suggestion to remove the mitigation section "is clearly a punch in the face of people suffering from the climate crisis," said Teresa Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Climate Action Network.

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Frans Timmermans, vice president of the European Commission, ridiculed the lawsuit as illogical.

"I try to follow the logic of that stance," he said, acknowledging that he understood the demands of developing countries for more money to adapt to the climate crisis.

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"But then say we eliminate mitigation ... there is no amount of money on the planet, there is no great technical solution for adaptation good enough to get us where we need to be in adaptation if we don't do mitigation. Look. what is happening with 1.1 degrees now. Imagine that we go to two degrees and two and a half degrees. What are you going to do in terms of adaptation? "

New alliance for the elimination of fossil fuels

Costa Rica and Denmark officially launched the "Alliance Beyond Oil and Gas" on Thursday.

The group includes France, Sweden, Ireland, Wales, Greenland and Quebec, while California, Portugal and New Zealand have joined as associate members, and Italy expressed support for the group.

Denmark's Climate Minister Dan Jorgensen said that all members of the group have committed to ending all new concessions, licenses and leases for oil and gas projects, and have also committed to setting a date in line with the Paris Agreements to end oil and gas exploration and production.

The UK, which is hosting the climate conference and has spearheaded many of the deals announced in the past two weeks, did not join the alliance.

Jorgensen said that some of the countries that have joined have significant oil and gas production and reserves.

He said one of the alliance's key goals is to put the issue of ending oil and gas exploration and drilling on the agenda.

"How can you defend the fact of wanting to be carbon neutral in 2050," Jorgensen asked, "but still wanting to produce oil and gas and sell it to others? That, in our opinion, does not make sense."

Negotiations on carbon markets

The COP26 presidency continues to press for an agreement on the details of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which establishes the need to create carbon markets.

No consensus was reached at previous COPs on the rules that should govern emissions trading, and the Glasgow talks are proving just as difficult.

The idea is that countries that are struggling to meet their emission reduction targets can, in the future, buy emission reductions from countries that have already reduced their emissions more than they committed to.

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But there are some important sticking points, such as how to avoid double counting and how to prevent the most polluting countries from betting on this market instead of focusing on the actual cuts.

Some developing countries have also advocated taxing markets, stating that revenues should go to climate finance.

Indigenous peoples groups have campaigned for any agreement to include strict human rights protections and clauses that protect their lands.

Some countries are pushing in this regard: Switzerland announced on Thursday that it has reached an agreement on emissions trading with several countries, including Peru, Ghana, Senegal, Georgia, Vanuatu and Dominica.

US rejects climate reparations at COP26

The United States does not support the creation of a compensation fund for losses and damages, an idea being promoted at COP26 by developing countries and the smallest, especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, an official from high American rank.

Vulnerable countries argue that rich countries are more responsible for climate change in historical terms.

Some countries in the front line of the crisis consider that the nations that have polluted the most should be responsible, and even pay for reparations.

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Despite the United States adhering to a recent statement by a group of 61 countries, known as the "Coalition of High Ambition," which agreed to increase resources for especially vulnerable countries, the official said the United States still has many doubts. on how it would work in practice.

CNN's Ingrid Formanek contributed to this report.