Six Years From Paris: Who's Going to Cop the Flack at COP26?
By Emilia Sullivan
On the 31st of October, delegates will converge on Glasgow for the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in what has been described as the “last chance to avoid the worst effects of climate change”. COP26 will be the most critical climate summit since Paris 2015 and has one overarching goal - to keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C alive. A UN report released in August warned that the planet is warming faster than scientists previously thought and that cutting greenhouse gas emissions by at least half this decade is crucial to warding off total climate catastrophe.
We are currently in the ‘Paris Period’, in which the pledges each nation made at the 2015 conference are in effect. These pledges, or ‘nationally determined contributions’ (NDCs), were formulated with the goal of keeping the earth’s temperature ‘well below’ 2°C, with aspirations of limiting it at 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Scientists see 2°C as a critical threshold that, if exceeded, would see some of the world's most densely populated areas become uninhabitable deserts or be flooded with seawater.
However, heading into COP26, only one country is on track to meet its goals - the West African nation of The Gambia. The NDCs brought to the French capital will not be enough to fulfil either goal and, if maintained, may lead to catastrophic heating of at least 3°C. This shortfall was even recognised by the hosts of the Paris conference six years ago, who implemented a ‘ratchet mechanism’ into the Agreement requiring countries to return to the negotiating table every five years with new targets to meet the temperature goals.
While it has been quietly conceded that aspirations for a 45% reduction in emissions would not be met, hosts the United Kingdom are still hoping that the conference will facilitate progress in other areas, ranging from forest protection and climate finance. Climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern says that we should avoid using language of success or failure, and instead hope for mechanisms and ways forward to close that gap further between now and 2025. President of COP26, Alok Sharma, says that he wants this year's conference to reach a consensus on a number of key targets, including phasing out the use of "unabated" coal, making all new car sales zero emissions within fourteen to nineteen years and reducing emissions from methane. Sharma says this will only happen if nations come forward with ambitious plans and meet their financial obligations to poorer countries.
Sharma also put a spotlight on “closing off some elements” of the Paris Rulebook. The 2018 Paris Rulebook governs how the 191 parties must pledge emissions reduction targets under the Agreement and report on their progress. While the rulebook has guidelines on ensuring ambitious targets to meet the temperature cap and provide finance and technological assistance to developing countries, experts believe it does not do enough to compel governments to ramp up action. Green Party leader James Shaw, who will be attending the Glasgow conference, says that the 2015 agreement got over the line due to “constructive ambiguity,” as parties were given the responsibility of determining and interpreting their own NDCs, accounting and compliance
rules. Shaw has labelled COP26 as one of the planet’s last opportunities to rebuild climate ambition.
At a discussion in Rotterdam at the Global Center for Adaptation, over fifty ministers and heads of climate organisations and development banks called for COP26 climate talks to treat adaptation as “urgent”. The leaders’ communique said that mitigation strategies such as building higher flood defences, growing more drought-resistant crops and relocating coastal communities had not benefited from the same attention, resources or urgency as efforts to cut planet-warming emissions. Delegates argued that communities worldwide have been “exposed to a climate emergency unfolding faster than predicted”, therefore adaptation policies need to be discussed “to keep pace with this most profound and far-reaching emergency”. UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J Mohammed noted that only about a fifth of climate finance has been distributed to adaptation efforts, with “only a fraction” of it going to poorer countries.
For COP26 to be a success, fostering constructive dialogue is imperative. At a Milan Youth Summit in September, activist Greta Thunberg said that while there is still time to turn the impending climate catastrophe around, it will take immediate, drastic annual emission reductions. The UN reports that even with maintained emissions targets, children born today will experience many times more extreme heatwaves and other climate disasters over their lifetimes than their grandparents. This lack of action by our leaders, Thunberg says, is an intentional betrayal of all present and future generations.
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