NEWS
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF COP26 Maria Bellissimo reflects on the outcomes of the climate summit that was meant to be the turning point in the fight against climate change.
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etween 1 and 13 November, Glasgow hosted the 26th UN Conference of Parties on Climate Change, aka COP26. The theme was “Keep 1.5 °C alive”, referencing the science that states that the worst damage from climate change can be avoided by keeping global warming at or below 1.5 °C. The two-week in-person summit, however, is only part of the story. In the year before it, the UK, as the host country, took the lead on increasing the global decarbonisation ambitions by setting itself new emission reduction targets and increasing funding commitments to support the shift towards decarbonisation in developing countries. Throughout 2021, COP26 President, British MP Alok Sharma, led negotiations with the countries involved, trying to spur big emitting countries into action and bridging the gaps between the positions on climate change of developed and developing countries.
WITH SO MANY COUNTRIES NOW INVOLVED AND SO MANY CONTRASTING INTERESTS REPRESENTED, IT SHOULDN’T BE A SURPRISE THAT PROGRESS HAS BEEN VERY SLOW.
With so much ongoing diplomacy between one summit and the next, many of the COP26 outcomes were already outlined even before the delegates arrived in Glasgow. Yet, the weeks before event were filled with dramatic headlines pushing the narrative that only a big, unforeseen, never-discussed-before announcement could be seen as a success. Now that we are on the other side of COP26, we can attempt a moderate assessment of what happened in Glasgow.
Conference of Parties – The Background It is important to set the scene for COP26 to understand its achievements and shortcomings. Since 1995, year of the first COP, the 197 countries that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have been meeting almost every year to discuss actions and form alliances to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol is the foundation for these annual summits. It established the commitment to reduce greenhouse gases; crucially, it recognised that developed countries played a much larger role in creating the current situation and therefore they should lead the way in decarbonising their economies and support (through financial and technological aid) developing countries in doing the same. The 2015 Paris Agreement introduced the objectives to keep the rise in global temperatures below 2°C and preferably at or below 1.5°C.
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THE OUTCOMES: WAS COP26 A SUCCESS OR A FAILURE?
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any post-COP26 reports have declared the summit a disappointment and that the 1.5C target is “in intensive care”. Instead, there are many reasons why COP26 is a turning point in the fight against climate change; some outcomes even represent the biggest progress since 1997.
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The Glasgow Agreement recognises the negative impact of climate change. No, this is not a joke. It’s a game changer. At previous COPs there were successful efforts by many countries to cast doubt over the science demonstrating the negative impact of climate change, which inevitably questioned the credibility of the whole exercise. COP26 managed to get all countries to agree on this and the need to keep global warming at 1.5°C to avoid a natural catastrophe.
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Accelerating efforts to phase down the use of coal and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. Another point that many might think has been made before. However, the Glasgow Agreement is the first time that all COP countries agree on the need to reduce the use of coal and fossil fuels. This marks such a stark change of
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