Countries that fail to act in line with their climate commitments will be warned in the United Nations climate summit in 2023 when a stock taking of actions and commitments will be evaluated, Fatih Birol, head of International Energy Agency (IEA), told Anadolu Agency in an interview on the sidelines of COP26.

COP presidency has assigned IEA to track and announce the countries' progress, Birol said.

Although Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5°C, is legally binding, there is globally no sanction or penalty on countries which do not fulfill their climate commitments.

'We will track countries' actions and announce if they turn commitments into practice until 2023. We will announce which countries adapt or fall behind their pledges. In 2023 COP summit which will probably take place in the United Arab Emirates, there will be a stock taking meeting,' Birol noted.

'There will be a kind of sanction in terms of warning,' he added.

A growing number of countries commit to reach net zero emissions by 2050 and 2060 with India by 2070.

In the first week of COP26, major coal producers including South Korea, Indonesia and Vietnam committed to phase out coal power generation or end new coal construction while coal power countries like Poland and Ukraine pledged to chase out coal.

China and the US did not join the pledges to stop using coal.

Birol also underlined the importance of commitments in climate finance which he sees as the biggest challenge in the fight against climate change.

In 2009, developed countries committed to a goal of jointly mobilizing $100 billion a year by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries in the context of meaningful mitigation actions and transparency on implementation.

The goal was reaffirmed under the Paris Agreement in 2015, as the parties committed to continue delivering on the goal through 2025.

COP26 presidency announced ahead of the summit that developed countries will only be able to meet the $100 billion pledge in 2023.

'The developing countries need around $1.1 trillion annually for climate change fight and clean energy transition. Developed nations fail to finance even the $100 billion pledge,' Birol said.

Almost 90% of emissions will come from developing and emerging countries but only 20% of the clean energy investment go to these countries, he said.

Birol explained that in developed countries like the US, Europe or Japan, the capital meets the energy investments in a way but this is not the case in the developing and emerging countries.

'There are a number of barriers for these countries to access finance,' he said adding that there are 600 million people in Africa and 1 billion people globally, who have no access to electricity.

'More distressing is that 2.6 billion people in the world use wood and turf for cooking and warming. This is a great problem which leads to respiratory disease in children and women. This disease is one of the most spread three reasons for premature deaths,' Birol concluded.

By Nuran Erkul Kaya in Glasgow, Scotland

Anadolu Agency

energy@aa.com.tr