A new version of the COP26 draft agreement was published early on Friday and retains an unprecedented reference to fossil fuels, despite a fierce campaign from major coal, oil and gas producers to have it removed entirely.

But the substance in this draft is weaker than the previous one, using watered down language, some of which can be open to interpretation.

The draft comes on the last day of the nearly two-week climate conference but is not final — it will still need all 197 parties in attendance to agree to it, and further watering down is entirely possible.

Keeping some mention of fossil fuels, however, increases pressure on major coal, oil and gas producers like Saudi Arabia, China, Russia and Australia, which were trying to have the article on fossil fuels either weakened or removed, according to two sources familiar with the talks. Officials in all four countries did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Pressure is now mounting on the fossil fuel producers to keep the language in.

The new text calls for the acceleration of “the phaseout of unabated coal power and of inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels.”

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The added word “unabated” essentially means countries could continue to use coal if they are able to capture large amounts of the carbon dioxide they emit. The concept is controversial as the technology to fully capture greenhouse gases is still in development. And “inefficient” was also added, leaving that part of the agreement fairly open to interpretation.

Nonetheless, if any line on fossil fules are kept, it would be the first Conference of the Parties climate agreement to make any mention of the role of coal, oil and gas, the biggest contributors to the human-made climate crisis.

“It’s always a bit of a tradeoff. The fact that we’ve got the phaseout of fossil fuel subsidies and the phaseout of coal in the text is really new and important,” Helen Mountford, vice president of climate and economics at the World Resources Institute, said in a briefing.

“The fact that they’ve added in ‘unabated’ in front of coal and ‘inefficient’ in front of fossil fuel subsidies, compared to the text a couple of days ago, is definitely going back to some more comfortable negotiated language in other fora. So I would expect that some countries like Saudi Arabia would have been pushing for adding the inefficient in front of the fossil fuel subsidies.”

While it’s progress on the political level, the agreement is far weaker than what scientists say is necessary for the world to contain global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. The most recent UN climate science report showed that the world needs to nearly halve emissions over this decade to keep that limit within reach.

Watering down

The language of the new draft agreement is softer compared to the first iteration in several sections. That is typically expected in climate negotiations, and the final agreement could be weaker still.

While the first draft of the agreement “urged” countries to come back with stronger emission-cutting targets by the end of next year, the new one merely “requests” them to do so.

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And while the first draft “noted with serious concern” that money provided to developing countries to deal with the climate crisis was insufficient, the latest draft only omits the word “serious.” The issue of who should pay for the impacts of the crisis has become the main sticking point in talks.

Calls for the world’s richest countries to provide more money has strengthened somewhat in the second draft, however, putting in more specific deadlines and urging developed countries to at least double the amount of money the transfer to the developing world to help them adapt to the crisis by 2025.

Money for adaptation had become the main sticking point stalling talks.

The Friday draft agreement, published by the COP26 presidency, also retains language saying the world should be aiming to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The document “recognizes that the impacts of climate change will be much lower at the temperature increase of 1.5 °C compared to 2 °C and resolves to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C.”

To do that, “rapid, deep and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions” are required, the document says. That language is in line with the latest science, which shows the world must limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in order to avoid the climate crisis worsening and approaching a catastrophic scenario.

A key analysis published on Tuesday said the world is on track for 2.4 degrees of warming. That would mean the risks of extreme droughts, wildfires, floods, catastrophic sea level rise and food shortages would increase dramatically, scientists say.

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