COP26: An opportunity to avert climate disaster

The COP26 climate change summit, hosted by Glasgow, UK started on Sunday, October 31. This is being considered as a ‘make or break’ opportunity to save our earth from the most disastrous impacts of climate change. This is the largest international event of its kind with more than 25,000 delegates participating- including world leaders, opinion formers and top businesses. Effectively every nation, country, or state in the world is involved, giving a total of 197 signatory parties. COP26 is working on preventing global temperatures rising above 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Participants are expected to discuss technical issues including carbon credits, funding for countries vulnerable to climate change and nature-based solutions in the first week of the summit. The second week will cover topics including gender, transport and the practical solutions needed to adapt to climate impacts.

The world has witnessed notable successes regarding preventing harmful effects of climate change events so far. Around 70 per cent of the world’s economy is now covered by net zero targets, up from less than 30 per cent when the UK took on the Presidency of COP26. This is something that will help the most vulnerable countries like Bangladesh.

However, it will not be too wise to paint too rosy a picture for the future. Rising temperatures mean that by 2100, 36 per cent of glaciers along the Hindu Kush and Himalayan range will be gone. This is indeed a critical situation meaning that Bangladesh– which is one of the countries, most vulnerable to climate change effects– alongside the rest of the world needs to act now. Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has stressed the need for increasing financing for ensuring survival of the most vulnerable countries from the adverse impact of climate change.

World leaders at the COP26 will work to strengthen commitments made in Paris in 2015 to stabilise the planet’s climate and look to speed up action to achieve a zero-carbon future by 2050. Limiting global warming to the Paris Agreement mandate requires cutting global carbon emissions by 25 per cent to 50 per cent below 2021 levels by 2030, followed by a steady decline to net-zero emissions by the middle of this century.

The question is how much can the COP26 deliver. Not everyone is hopeful. Indeed, just last week UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) rich nations, “Let’s be clear - there is a serious risk that Glasgow will not deliver.” The leaders of rich and powerful countries have time and again fallen short of making firm commitments regarding capping emissions at 1.5C. And it is India and China are major emitters of the world that haven’t committed to any 2050 deadline.

The Glasgow event is being held at a time when Covind-19 pandemic has refocused priorities and forced individuals and governments alike to pay closer attention to the environment. As different countries are looking forward rebuild their economies in the wake of the pandemic, the emphasis is on building back better through a green recovery.

Experts are viewing COP26 as the successor to COP21 where the Paris Accord was signed, arguably the greatest success from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in recent years. COP26 is seen as the summit to address both what has and has not been achieved since 2015, while also setting concrete plans to reach the Paris Agreement targets.

On a more positive note, 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 President Donald Trump. The huge expectations from COP 266 include arriving at a consensus on unresolved issues of the Paris Agreement Rule Book, long-term climate finance, and market-based mechanisms. COP26 needs to begin the process of setting the long-term climate finance. We believe in climate justice.

We urge the developed countries to transfer the finance and technology necessary to deal with the fallouts of global warming. After all it is the heavily industrialised countries who are mostly responsible for things coming to such a pass. Any attempt at solving the crisis would involve the Western countries making good on promises already enshrined in previous editions of the COP. We want the COP26 to be the COP of action and execution.