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01-11-2021
GLASGOW: The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) has begun in the Scottish city of Glasgow, accompanied by drastic warnings from the scientific community of an escalating climate crisis.
Delayed by a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic, COP26 aims to keep alive a target of capping global warming at 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – the limit scientists say would avoid its most destructive consequences.
Meeting that goal, agreed in Paris to much fanfare in 2015, will require a surge in political momentum and diplomatic heavy-lifting to make up for the insufficient action and empty pledges that have characterized much of global climate politics.
The conference, which began on Sunday, needs to secure more ambitious pledges to further cut emissions, lock in billions in climate finance, and finish the rules to implement the Paris Agreement with the unanimous consent of the nearly 200 countries that signed it.
“Let’s be clear there is a serious risk that Glasgow will not deliver,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) rich nations last week.
“Even if recent pledges were clear and credible and there are serious questions about some of them we are still careening towards climate catastrophe.”
Countries’ existing pledges to cut emissions would see the planet’s average temperature rise 2.7C this century, which the UN says would supercharge the destruction that climate change is already causing by intensifying storms, exposing more people to deadly heat and floods, killing coral reefs and destroying natural habitats.
The signals ahead of COP26 have been mixed. A new pledge last week from China, the world’s biggest polluter, was labeled a missed opportunity that will cast a shadow over the two-week summit. Announcements from Russia and Saudi Arabia were also lacklustre.
The return of the United States, the world’s biggest economy, to UN climate talks will be a boon to the conference, after a four-year absence under former President Donald Trump but like many world leaders, President Joe Biden will arrive at COP26 without firm legislation in place to deliver his own climate pledge as Congress wrangles over how to finance it and new uncertainty about whether US agencies can even regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Al Jazeera’s Nick Clark, reporting from Glasgow, said big commitments were needed from this conference.
“The science says we need to prevent temperatures from rising beyond ideally 1.5 degrees Celsius,” Clark said.
“So in Glasgow, we need a strong declaration – that commits to net zero emissions by 2050, as well as big reductions by 2030,” he added.
The fight against the climate crisis was also a topic in Rome at the summit of the heads of state and government of the G20 group.
Hopes for a strong signal to the climate summit were dampened, however, as there was disagreement on new climate protection pledges.
The G20, which includes Brazil, China, India, Germany and the United States, accounts for about 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions but hopes the Rome meeting might pave the way to success in Scotland have dimmed considerably.
James Bays, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor reporting from Rome, said a draft copy of the final G20 communique included language with less ambitious global warming targets than those set by climate experts.
“We have seen a draft copy (of the final statement) … the language in there which talks about keeping global warming well below 2 degrees is not the 1.5 degrees that the UN and most experts say is absolutely essential,” Bays said.
“Also all the individual countries from the G20 have got to come up with their own commitments and many of those are believed by experts to be lacking,” Bays explained.
“The leaders here will join leaders from all around the world in Glasgow [to COP26], and that the UN says is a conference that is absolutely vital to protect the planet, and the UN has also made it clear … that without the G20 doing that it has very little chance of success in Glasgow,” he added.
Other important topics in Glasgow are trading between states with progress in climate protection and the financing of damage and losses caused by global warming, especially in poorer countries. (Al Jazeera)
