The COP26 climate talks have agreed to get countries to strengthen their emissions-cutting targets for 2030 by the end of next year in a bid to limit dangerous warming.
Ministers and negotiators at the UN summit in Glasgow have also sent a signal on the shift away from the world's dirtiest fuel, with a deal calling for efforts to escalate the "phase down" of unabated coal, as well as the phasing out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
The Glasgow Pact was watered down at the last minute - following a push by India and China - from escalating the "phase out" of unabated coal, to "phase down", prompting angry responses from European and vulnerable countries.
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But it is the first explicit mentions of fossil fuels in a UN climate agreement.
The deal aims to keep limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels "alive" or within reach, in the face of a huge gap between the action countries are taking and what is needed to meet the goal.
In the wake of the " Glasgow Pact" being gavelled through - more than 24 hours after the official finishing time of the conference, there were warnings that the 1.5C goal was "on life support".
In response, climate justice campaigners from Friends of the Earth International say that the COP26 agreement will be remembered as the ‘Glasgow get-out clause’ - which will leave developed countries "free to keep polluting".
Sara Shaw, Climate justice and energy programme coordinator for Friends of the Earth International, said: “The final outcome of COP26 leaves developed countries free to keep polluting whilst giving the green light for massive land grabs for offsets in developing countries. The UK Presidency and their allies are patting themselves on the back but no deal at all would have been better.
“It is nothing less than a scandal. Just saying the words 1.5 degrees is meaningless if there is nothing in the agreement to deliver it. COP26 will be remembered as a betrayal of global South countries - abandoned to the climate crisis with no money for the energy transition, adaptation or loss and damage.
“Perhaps it is no surprise that this was the moment a deal was finally forced through on carbon markets which are a free pass for rich countries reluctant to cut emissions. Many Southern delegates struggled to attend or make their voices heard, but fossil fuel corporations were present in force.
“This deal on carbon markets could mean a rise in global emissions. Combined with a weak commitment to ‘net zero’ by mid century and the inclusion of seductive sounding ‘nature-based-solutions’, which is code for massive tree planting in the global South, this deal will fuel a grabbing of Indigenous and developing countries’ land for carbon offsets, not to mention a rush for unproven technofixes.
“The 150,000 people out on the streets for climate justice in Glasgow know the solutions to the climate crisis: a just transition to a world without fossil fuels and climate finance flowing from developed to developing countries. Disgracefully, rich countries opted instead for the Glasgow ‘get-out clause’ while hanging developing countries out to dry.”
