Since the beginning of COP26, several countries have tightened their national climate protection targets. But the question of how the implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement should be financed in concrete terms continues to cause explosions.
In the first week of the UN climate conference in Glasgow there were some big announcements, for example on forest protection or the reduction of the strong greenhouse gas methane. But from the point of view of many climate activists and experts, what has been achieved so far at COP26 is nowhere near as glamorous as the British presidency of this year’s world climate summit has shown.
Mohamed Adow, head of the Nairobi-based climate think tank Power Shift Africa, says there are “two realities” at COP26. “One is the world of the British government’s press releases,” which suggests, “‘everything is fine and we have as good as overcome the climate crisis'”. The other world, however, is “outside of this PR bubble,” adds Adow. “The climate in cold hard facts.”
Discrepancy between announcements and concrete measures
The aim of the conference in Glasgow is to limit global warming to 1.5 to two degrees compared to the pre-industrial age, as provided for in the Paris Climate Agreement. The UK’s COP presidency is pushing for the more ambitious 1.5 degrees to be the common goal of the international community.
In the first half of COP26 there was movement towards the abandonment of fossil fuels, reforestation and climate aid for developing countries. A spokesman for COP26 spoke of “real momentum”. But experts see a blatant discrepancy between bloated and polished announcements and real progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. COP President Alok Sharma announced on Wednesday: “A coalition of 190 players agreed today to phase out coal energy.”
On a subsequent list of signatories, however, there were only 77 new supporters of the initiative, including 46 states. Of the supporters who had already joined an earlier coal phase-out initiative, 23 countries made additional commitments in Glasgow, according to the COP presidency. On the list of these states, which the AFP news agency has, there are ten countries that, according to the climate think tank Ember, have no coal in their energy mix. Taken together, the signatories also only represent around 13 percent of global consumption of coal energy.
Financing question still open
In addition, the COP presidency presented an “unprecedented” alliance against deforestation with countries that represent 85 percent of the world’s rainforests. It commemorates the New York Declaration on Forests of 2014, which was signed by more than 40 countries to end deforestation by 2030. An examination of the implementation of this declaration this year showed, however, that of the 32 largest forest nations only India followed up on the commitment.
Doreen Stabinsky, professor of global environmental policy at the College of the Atlantic in the US state of Maine, warns that pledges to protect the forest are made quickly – as a fig leaf for the sustained increase in greenhouse gas emissions. But there are “not enough trees on the planet to continue blindly with emissions”.
Even when it comes to money for climate protection, a lot is a question of interpretation. For example, the former head of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, announced a climate-neutral alliance of investors in Glasgow with a total of 130 trillion dollars (112 trillion euros) in their portfolios. Observers noted, however, that the members of the alliance only have to put a small part of their money into green projects and are also allowed to continue investing in fossil fuels.
Due to new long-term commitments in Glasgow, some already see a limitation of global warming to 1.8 degrees within reach. In most cases, there is no concrete implementation plan behind the pledge of numerous countries to become climate neutral in the coming decades, as a high-ranking diplomat told AFP.
Countries like Australia and Saudi Arabia would have announced their climate neutrality targets without a plan, says climate expert Simon Lewis from University College London – “and the emissions are massively going in the wrong direction.” Such announcements deserved the warning: “This is unlikely to happen.”
Source From: Stern
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