If you have been paying attention to the news over recent weeks, you should be aware that COP26 is a huge event that involves much more than just the headline conference. This brings together many, many people in one location and together with the pre-conference and other associated events will emit a massive amount of greenhouse gases. I am sure the irony of this will not have escaped you!
A great deal of time, effort and energy has been expended in preparing for COP26, and while this preparation has been going on, the chances for us to take meaningful action to avoid the most serious consequences of climate breakdown have become more and more limited. Most climate scientists generally agree that now, in the autumn of 2021, we have less than 10 years left in which to reduce significantly our emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases if we are going to limit global heating to 2o C or less above pre-industrial levels. This is the target that was agreed by the Parties to the Convention at COP21 in Paris in 2015.
Climate Change 2021
In their Sixth Assessment Report ‘Climate Change 2021’, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) made it clear that action by humans has warmed the atmosphere, ocean and land, leading to widespread and rapid changes. The rate of warming is unprecedented and climate change is already affecting weather and leading to climate extremes in every region of the world. The IPCC warned that under even the most optimistic scenario, the earth will warm by more than 2°C during this century unless “…deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions occur in the coming decades.”
To make the changes quickly enough to achieve the target of the Paris Agreement, we should have reached global agreement on the action to take some time ago and already be well into the necessary actions. The fact that we have not done so means that COP26 is probably our last chance to agree to meaningful international action to deal with climate breakdown! But more than this, any agreement to act must be followed, immediately, by these deep reductions in CO2 and other greenhouse gases. We cannot afford to wait another 5 or 6 years.
From my position as an interested and informed observer to the process, I do not think the omens for COP26 are good. The UN FCCC has organised 25 COPs since 1995. After so much time spent discussing what we need to do, we should be seeing real reductions in the level of greenhouse gas emissions.
But instead, emissions have been increasing to the extent that in May 2020, the average level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was more than 417 parts per million (ppm). To meet the targets set by the Paris Agreement, we need to keep levels at less than 350 ppm. Given that 25 previous COPs have taken place during a period of rising emissions of carbon dioxide, will a 26th have any significant effect?
Build Back Better?
In announcing the new dates for COP26, the UK Prime Minister called for renewed collaborative action on climate change. He continued by indicating that we owe it to future generations to “build back better” and base our recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic on solid foundations, including a fairer, greener and more resilient global economy. There is little evidence at this stage that his rhetoric is being matched by policies and funding. Whenever the UK government makes a positive announcement, it is almost always followed by another announcement that will see greenhouse gas emissions rise – a possible new deep coal mine in Cumbria and additional funding for oil exploration in the Cambo field, off the Shetland Isles. Funding pledges seem to follow a similar pattern with money announced for action to reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from a business or sector dwarfed by the amount awarded to projects with the opposite effect.
Expectations
An effective and meaningful outcome to COP26 is vitally important to the global effort to reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases and avoid damaging climate breakdown. If our leaders fail to reach a meaningful agreement and defer decisions further, it’s difficult to see what future there is for the UN FCCC process – and for our efforts to avoid and adapt to the most serious effects of climate breakdown. Again, you may recall that in an earlier post in this series, I explained that the UN FCCC is a United Nations treaty.
The ultimate aim of the treaty is to prevent dangerous human interference with the climate system. If agreement to take meaningful and immediate action to limit our effect on the climate is not taken in early November, the treaty has failed and should, probably be consigned to history as being full of the best global intentions against which it could not deliver.
But this would leave us in a position where each country is forced to act alone and in what their politicians consider to be their country’s best interests. This would mean that the most vulnerable states would be forced to deal with a crisis that is not of their making and without the funding or other resources to take effective action. The recriminations and fallout from such a failure could further jeopardise international relations with the real danger of conflict.
In the remaining days and weeks before the World Leaders assemble in Glasgow, we must all put as much pressure as possible on our leaders to put aside their narrow self-interest and do what is right for the earth and for humanity.