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China Is Sabotaging Big Climate Pledge at COP26 Conference, Says Report

A group of 22 nations, including China, is reportedly refusing to sign up to the draft COP26 agreement.

The main reason for holding the COP26 conference is to get world leaders to agree to a joint declaration on how they’ll go about trying to prevent a climate catastrophe—but, according to CNN, that effort is at serious risk of failure because a group of nations, including China and India, is refusing to sign up. CNN reported Thursday morning that a group of 22 nations—known collectively as the Like-Minded Developing Countries—have demanded that an entire section on the mitigation of climate change be removed from the draft COP26 agreement, which was released earlier this week. That section commits nations to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to “revisit and strengthen” their climate plans by the end of 2022. Diego Pacheco, the chief negotiator for Bolivia, which is part of the LMDC group, told CNN: “We requested the presidency remove completely the section on mitigation.”