COP26: results and reactions + Dark Patterns • Europe.Table

COP26: results and reactions
Dark Patterns difficult to regulate
EU digital index reveals further weaknesses
Putin warns Belarus against gas freeze
Profile: Bernd Hüttemann

Dear reader,

The final whistle sounded after extra time at the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, which officially came to an end with the final closing declaration on Saturday evening. This puts COP26 roughly in the middle of the pack in terms of length. The record is held by the first climate summit, which took place in Berlin in 1995 and ended as early as Friday noon. The longest negotiations took place two years ago in Madrid.

In Paris 2015 at the latest, international climate protection moved out of the diplomatic shadows and into the limelight, and since then, no climate conference has been held without a grace period. After all, it is becoming more and more difficult every year to keep the 1.5-degree target formulated at the time within reach, and in the past two weeks, too, the credo was: “keep one point five alive”.

For long stretches, however, it didn’t look like it. Lukas Scheid has analyzed for you whether the global coal phase-out was successful after all, why it was watered down at the last minute and what the agreement on the completion of the Paris rulebook looks like.

So-called “dark patterns” on the Internet attract the attention of the authorities time and again. With the help of design tricks, websites often mislead consumers into actions that contradict their actual interests. But how can the problem be countered? Torsten Kleinz has taken a closer look at the regulatory approaches.

Your
Timo Landenberger

Feature

Glasgow deal: announced, negotiated, watered down

The World Climate Conference in Glasgow ended with a last-minute watering down of the global coal phase-out in the final declaration. EU politicians and NGOs are disappointed, but also highlight numerous successes of COP26. Above all, the agreement on Article 6 is likely to be groundbreaking for the future, even if some questions remain unanswered.

By
Lukas Scheid

The 26th UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow ended on Saturday with a veritable diplomatic showdown on the open stage. For over an hour, EU Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans negotiated alongside COP President Alok Sharma and US Special Envoy John Kerry with India’s Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav and China’s chief negotiator Xie Zhenhua. Not behind closed doors but in the main chamber. The result: a “phase-out” of coal-fired power generation became a “phasedown” in a completely non-transparent procedure in which the most powerful nations alone decided on the success or failure of COP26.

Hunched over pieces of paper and arguing over small-scale formulations, the “Gl a sgow Climate Pact” was finalized – but without final consultation with the smaller, less influential nations. They were banished to the sidelines, even though they too would have liked to make amendments, as Mexico subsequently complained. For them, it meant that the final declaration would no longer be touched.

What happened? India and China – supported by other coal nations such as Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba – did not agree with the wording on the coal phase-out in the last draft of the final declaration. It no longer referred to a general phase-out of coal-fired power generation, but only to the end of the dirtiest coal plants – so-called “unabated coal”. More modern coal plants that reduce emissions, for example, through carbon capture technologies, would not have been affected by this formulation anyway.

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