London | The 197 countries gathered at COP26 backed a “Glasgow Climate Pact” late on Saturday (Sunday AEDT), shelving difficult, emotive talks on cash for climate-related damage until next year, and swallowing a last-minute push by India and China to dilute a pledge on phasing out coal.

COP26 host Britain held the line on much of its ambitious text, as it tried to kill off coal, rev up funding for developing countries to tackle climate change, and get countries to scale up their emissions-cutting targets on a yearly basis.