Rested COP26 negotiators hope to take climate talks over the line
CBC
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Negotiators streamed into the venue for the UN climate talks early Saturday, hoping that a good night's sleep would help them seal a deal that could credibly be said to boost the world's efforts to tackle global warming.
British officials chairing the talks in Glasgow, Scotland, broke with the habit of previous talks by telling negotiators from almost 200 nations late Friday to go and get some rest, rather than power through the night.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Friday that he believes "an ambitious outcome is in sight" at the two-week talks, which are now in overtime.
Countries remained divided on three main topics: financial aid for poor nations; including mention of a coal phaseout and an end to fossil fuel subsidies generally in the final agreement; and the question of how soon nations have to come back with new targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Scientists say the world is not on track to achieve the 2015 Paris accord's ambitious goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius by the end of the century compared with pre-industrial times.
The Conference of Parties (COP) meets every year and is the global decision-making body set up in the early 1990s to implement the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and subsequent climate agreements.
As Vladimir Putin and his large entourage touch down Thursday in Beijing for a two-day state visit, there were be plenty of public overtures about cooperation, but with China facing increasing pressure from the U.S. over its trade relationship with Russia, China's President Xi Jinping will have to figure out how far the country is willing to go to prop up what was once described as a "no-limits" partnership.
Israel ordered new evacuations in Gaza's southern city of Rafah on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands more people to move as it prepares to expand its military operation closer to the heavily populated central area, in defiance of growing pressure amid the war from close ally the United States and others.