...discussions on the use of coal are being washed away in a flood of words.

After two weeks of negotiations, nearly 200 countries approved a climate agreement on Saturday, 13 November. Its aim is to keep plans for halting global warming unchanged. It should be noted that the final COP26 agreement was amended at the last minute with a significant content change proposed by India. Specifically, the critical stance on the future use of coal has disappeared from the final document.

What happened:

1. At the plenary session, the main task of which was to approve the agreement, the Indian representative proposed changing the words "phasing out coal power" to "phasing down"
2. The relevant part of the agreement text has been harmonised as follows: "including escalating efforts to phase down unabated coal power, and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies." (including escalating efforts to phase down unabated coal power, and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.")
3. India, Iran, and several other countries had previously objected to the removal of subsidies for the extraction of coal and other fossil energy sources
4. Representatives from many countries in Glasgow were deeply disappointed by this proposal from India. The representatives of Switzerland and Mexico considered the proposed changes to be against the rules, as they were submitted too late
5. But... there was no other option than to accept the amendment proposed by India