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Britain suggests climate funding plan as UN negotiators go into overtime

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Negotiators took the two-week United Nations (UN) climate talks in Scotland into an extra day on Saturday, wrestling with a fresh draft of an agreement intended to give the world a realistic shot at avoiding the worst effects of global warming.

Alok Sharma, the British conference president, said he expected COP26 to close on Saturday afternoon with a deal between the almost 200 countries present, ranging from coal- and gas-fuelled superpowers to oil producers and Pacific islands being swallowed by the rise in sea levels.

Like earlier versions, the latest draft attempted to balance the demands of climate-vulnerable nations, big industrial powers, and those whose consumption or exports of fossil fuels are vital to their economic development.

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Britain tried to unblock one of the thorniest issues by proposing mechanisms to ensure that the poorest nations finally get more of the financial help they have been promised to prepare for and manage increasingly frequent extreme weather.

China, the biggest current emitter of the greenhouse gases responsible for manmade global warming, and Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, were seeking to prevent the final deal including language that opposes subsidies for fossil fuels, two sources told Reuters on Friday.

However, Saturday’s draft, published by the UN, continued to single out fossil fuels – something no UN climate conference conclusion has yet succeeded in doing.

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