World leaders must act to “save humanity”, UN chief Antonio Guterres said on Monday as they met for the historic UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) climate summit with code-red warnings from scientists ringing in their ears.
Now that the Conference of Parties (COP26) has concluded in Glasgow, it is fairly obvious that the participating countries have once again agreed to disagree, as they did in Cancun, Copenhagen and Paris.
The objective of achieving 1.5 degree Celsius as a limit to global warming remains ever so elusive. Many countries, notably small emitters, have stepped up their climate ambitions, even while pledging commitments to bold, and even sweeping actions to address the almost intractable issue of global emissions.
The scenario that has emanated from Glasgow is decidedly imperfect for a world that has been grappling with the problem for as long as it has. The comity of nations is still undecided on the limits that it has to observe to stem the impacts of climate change.
The Glasgow Climate Pact, a remarkable irony if ever there was one, underlines certain major steps that the world cannot afford to avoid. One significant achievement is that the Paris Agreement Rulebook ~ the operational guidelines of the agreement ~ was adopted in Glasgow. There was progress on what they call “adaptation finance” ~ intrinsically the global goal on adaptation ~ gender, and the Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities Platform.
However, the agreement fell short on bold and necessary actions, such as calling for an end to fossil fuels and putting a price on carbon. These are the two primary issues on which successive climate change conferences have hit the reefs.
And so it did in the Scottish city. In retrospect, the Paris agreement was a true reflection of science. In the run up to the Glasgow conference, three-quarters of the world’s nations submitted their revised national climate strategies as agreed under the Paris Agreement. But these pledges ~ Nationally Determined Contributions NDCs) ~ require significant support to turn them into reality.It was pretty obvious in Glasgow that developing countries need to be assured that their ambitions will be met with the financial and technical support that are required. Notably, this will require ensuring that the $100 billion commitment “is a floor and not a ceiling”.Support for adapting to the impacts of climate change is critical in the overall construct. It is crucial to meet the increasing demands of some of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable communities that are grappling with the climate crisis. It is imperative to ensure that the road to COP27 is now paved. With 1.5 degrees remaining barely within reach, COP26 must be a springboard for further commitments from countries in the immediate future.
After Glasgow, no longer can anyone be under any illusion. Hope remains, yet our window to protect people and planet is closing by the day. The endeavour must of necessity be collective. So too must be the response when the leaders gather at the high table.
More than 120 heads of state and government are gathering in Glasgow for a two-day summit at the start of the UN’s COP26 conference, which organisers say is crucial for charting humanity’s path away from catastrophic global warming.
US President Joe Biden, India’s Narendra Modi and Germany’s Angela Merkel were all set to deliver speeches expected to reiterate the need for urgency.“It’s one minute to midnight … and we need to act now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said to start proceedings on an at-times chaotic opening day.
COP26 is being billed as vital for the continued viability of the Paris Agreement, which countries signed in 2015 by promising to limit global temperature rises to “well below” two degrees Celsius, and to work for a safer 1.5 degrees Celsius cap.With a little over one degree Celsius of warming since the Industrial Revolution, the Earth is being battered by ever more extreme heatwaves, flooding and tropical storms supercharged by rising seas.
Pressure is on governments to redouble their emissions-cutting commitments to bring them in line with the Paris goals, and to stump up long-promised cash to help developing nations green their grids and protect themselves against future disasters.“It’s time to say: enough,” Guterres said. “Enough of brutalising biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.”Thousands of delegates queued around the block to get into the summit on Monday, negotiating airport-style security in the locked-down city centre.On nearby streets, protesters began lively demonstrations to keep up the pressure on delegates. Activists from Oxfam communicated their displeasure through music, with a Scottish pipe band, COP26 Hot Air Band, wearing masks that caricatured world leaders.
Johnson spoke of the “uncontainable” public anger if the conference falls flat.Echoing 18-year-old climate campaigner Greta Thunberg — who is in Glasgow with thousands of other protesters — he urged the summit against indulging in “blah blah blah”.If the leaders “fluff our lines or miss our cue”, generations as-yet unborn “will not forgive us”, the prime minister said.“They will know that Glasgow was the historic turning point when history failed to turn. They will judge us with bitterness and with a resentment that eclipses any of the climate activists of today — and they will be right,” he said.
$100bn question
Another pressing issue is the failure of rich countries to deliver $100 billion annually to help climate-vulnerable nations adapt to climate change.The goal — meant to be delivered last year — has been postponed to 2023, exacerbating tensions between richer nations, responsible for global warming, and those poorer countries who are the victims of its effects.The addresses from well over 100 world leaders will be closely scrutinised in particular by young activists who travelled to Scotland by train.“As citizens across the planet, we urge you to face up to the climate emergency,” they said in an open letter signed by Thunberg among others, which had gathered nearly a million signatures.
“Not next year. Not next month. Now.”
