The annual meeting, which had to be suspended last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, will be attended by the almost 200 representatives who in 1992 signed the Convention on Climate Change in Rio de Janeiro, and provides a balance of the results achieved by the signatories of the Paris Agreement and a review of its goals.
The Paris Agreement, signed by 189 countries during COP21 and in force since 2016, establishes a global framework to avoid dangerous climate change by keeping global warming well below 2 ° C and advancing efforts to limit it to 1.5 ° C.
As a contribution to these goals of the agreement, each of the parties submitted national climate action plans, better known as National Determined Contributions (NDCs), and agreed to meet every five years to assess progress.
Although all signatories were supposed to update their NDCs by July 31 this year, about 70 have yet to do so.
In this sense, the COP26 schedule for Monday, November 1 and Tuesday, November 2 will be key since it will begin with a summit of world leaders, in which heads of state must present their proposals to reduce carbon emissions worldwide. and strategies to meet the goal of the agreement.
Another important fact is that this appointment will mark the return of the United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China, to the world summit on climate, after former president Donald Trump announced in 2017 that he was withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.
Since the inauguration of Joe Biden, the United States marked a turn in its environmental policy: the president announced that he would double the financial commitment to help developing nations face the climate crisis and established a new goal to reduce emissions between 50% and 52% below the level of 2005 before the end of the decade.
Another big announcement was that of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who assured that his country will not build any coal-fired power projects abroad.
These new measures and revisions to past strategies are urgent.
According to a report published last August by the UN, far from reducing emissions by 45% by 2030, with the aim of reaching carbon neutrality by mid-century, the commitments made by countries in terms of emissions will produce a 16% increase in 2030 from 2010 levels.
Although the situation is critical, the investigation found that if the world reaches “net zero” by mid-January, that is, it achieves that the emission of greenhouse gases is lower than those that are eliminated into the atmosphere, global warming will be reduced. It can hold in around 1.5 degrees Celsius.
For this reason, among the central issues that will occupy the summit’s agenda are the functioning of the regulated carbon market, the reduction of methane gas and renewable energies, and sustainable, electric and efficient mobility.
Another important point will revolve around deforestation growth, with our eyes on Brazil, due to its lack of transparency in relation to the Amazon, the largest forest mass on the planet, an essential resource to reach “net zero”.
In this context, Alok Sharma, Member of the British Parliament and president of the summit, said that he hopes that the summit will define an end date for the use of coal without capture and storage technology, and that it will agree on an annual fund of 100 billion dollars. for climate policy financing.
The COP26 will also be attended by Queen Elizabeth, the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his Scottish counterpart Nicola Sturgeon and a significant number of world leaders such as Biden, the main European leaders and the President of Argentina Alberto Fernández, among others.
On the other hand, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has already announced that he will not participate, although his country will send a representative and assured that the issue is a “priority” for his government.
In addition, climate activists David Attenborough and young Swede Greta Thunberg will be part of the debates, despite the latter criticizing the event and expressing pessimism about its chances of achieving significant change.
“My expectation is that we will hear many pleasant speeches, but we will hear many promises that, if you really look at the details, are more or less insignificant, but they are only said to have something to say, for media to have something to report on” , he assured in a recent interview.
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