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UNITED NATION CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE 2021

Updated: Nov 20, 2021

Report by Kumari Khushi and Yoshita Bhardwaj


Innovation is at the core of our climate-smart approach to the future. Climate solutions will come not from avoiding technology and innovation, but by encouraging and supporting it.#COP26

via Wikipedia


The 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 26) to the UNFCCC was hosted by the United Kingdom, in partnership with Italy. The summit brought parties together to work towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. More than 190 world leaders participated, along with tens of thousands of negotiators, government representatives, businesses and citizens for twelve days of talks.


For nearly three decades the UN has been making an effort to bring together almost every country for global climate summits. In that time climate change has gone from being apolitical issue to a global priority. The goal is enhanced ambition towards Mitigating climate change, outlined as ‘RATCHET MECHANISM’. It is a march against inadequate actions taken related to climate issues.


COP26 took place in SEC Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, the United Kingdom from 1 to 12 November 2021 under the presidency of Alok Sharma.


via Copernicus Marine Service


COP21 took place in Paris in 2015. Under the Paris Agreement, countries committed to bring forward national plans setting out how much they would reduce their emissions – known as

Nationally Determined Contributions, or ‘NDCs’. The meeting in Glasgow was delayed for a year from 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic, and was hosted by the UK government and the government of Italy in November 2021.


Main topics for discussion at the meeting will be ending the use of coal, speeding up transitions away from oil and gas, and reducing government subsidies for fossil fuels, which are all essential for the betterment of the climate conditions. Countries have made various pledges to reduce their emissions, the pledges still leave us on track for a 16 percent rise in emissions by 2030, even what we need is 45% decrease in the coming decades. So, the question is whether these pledges will lead to some results or not.


Every day update of the COP26 from Nov1 to Nov12:


NOVEMBER1:

After a gloomy start, the COP26 climate summit began with leaders addressing the urgency of the

problem of climate change and conceding that action is needed. Many national leaders made speeches. Probably the most dramatic contribution so far came from Prime Minister Narendra Modi from India. The country didn’t submit an emissions plan ahead of COP26, but the fact that Modi was attending in person suggested he had something important in mind. As he announced that India will target net-zero emissions by 2070, which is two decades after the 2050 deadline the summit is aiming for, it is, however, an advance. What India does will matter boundlessly, because it is one of the world’s largest emitters of greenhouse gases.


Quote of the day: “We are in roughly the same position, my fellow global leaders, as James

Bond today.” UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in his speech that world leaders were like super spy James Bond, faced with a world-ending bomb that needed to be defused and wondering which wire to cut.


NOVEMBER 2:

On the second day of COP26, countries made progress on limiting methane emissions, capping oil and gas emissions, and cooperating on water issues that are very acute. The US announced measures to reduce the emission of methane. The US is promising to cut these emissions by 30 per cent by 2030. The US aims to cut methane emissions by targeting leaks from oil and gas facilities such as pipelines and offshore rigs. The details are mentioned in the US Methane Emissions Reduction Action Plan. The US Environmental Protection Agency will play a major role. Because oil and gas facilities are easily identifiable sources of the gas, they are comparatively easy to regulate and control.


Canada targets its own oil and gas emissions

Canada is planning to put a cap on emissions from its oil and gas sectors. In theory, this should drive down emissions. The world has a climate crisis and a water crisis, but these two are never seen as correlated problems. A group has been launched today called the Water and Climate Coalition, aims to make up the links between the two and hence prevent parts of the world from drowning.


Quote of the day: “We’re a day-and-a-half into this, and I’ve seen more energy and more

commitment and more urgency than I’ve ever seen. And I’ve been doing this since 1988.” By John Kerry.


NOVEMBER 3:

The ultimate aim of the whole COP26 exercise was to reduce the use of fossil fuels as soon as possible. Pledges to hit net zero by a given date are appreciable, but they need to be worked for to make that happen. For example, in many countries fossil fuels still get public funding, sometimes in the form of tax breaks for exploration. Will those subsidies finally be removed? Should more countries set timelines to stop using coal? To drive countries in that direction, the next day also saw the launch of the latest global carbon budget, which has been working upon the quantity of greenhouse gases emission last year and how much more we can emit out. Early conditions are that there may be some real progress. At least 19 nations are involved in this, including the US and UK.


Quote of the day: “I am pleased to announce that I’ve decided to go net zero on swear words and bad language. In the event that I should say something inappropriate, I pledge to compensate for that by saying something nice.” Greta Thunberg.


NOVEMBER 4:

23 countries have vowed to stop new coal power schemes, and to evolve existing ones. They include five of the top 20 coal-using countries: South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Poland and Ukraine. The plan requires direct action from developed countries – high-income countries are cheaper evolving sometime, while the developing ones have until the 2040s. One of the reasons it is so hard to stop greenhouse gas emissions is that emissions coming from one country are supported, financially or otherwise, by other countries. So it is good news that 20 governments have promised to stop financing oil, coal and gas projects outside their borders. The list includes Canada, the UK and the US. The move will come into effect by the end of 2022. These countries are still able to finance oil, coal and gas projects within their own borders. So this is very much an unpromising solution. But it will take away the funding and infrastructure that underlies fossil fuel extraction – making it harder and more expensive to use fossil fuels, while renewables become ever cheaper.


Quote of the Day: "The end of coal power is now within sight,” by COP26 president Alok Sharma

.

NOVEMBER 5:

Youth activists have played a major role in promoting the urgency of acting on climate change, as they protested in massive numbers at the COP26 summit. COP26 has been working too slowly on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which is the key to reducing climate change. The summit has been focused more on this decarbonisation than on adaptation.


Quote of the day: US climate envoy John Kerry told delegates that “Mother Nature” is punishing us with floods and droughts, and that people “are increasingly outraged at the lack of adequate response”. Asked what he thought of the various commitments so far, and the assessments of what

they mean for future temperature rises, he was hasty. “Let me emphasise as strongly as I can: job not done.”


NOVEMBER 8:

Agreement on the text of the final COP26 agreement has been hard to come, and former US president Barack Obama encouraged negotiators to take partial victories. Officially, this day was about two things: adaptation, and loss and damage due to the effects of climate change.


Adaptation means helping people who are directly affected by climate change – for example, those living on storm-wrecked coasts – to find ways to survive and thrive. That is going to require a lot of costs for poor countries, who are on the front on these impacts. Loss and damage is a reason for dispute. It refers to climate damages that can’t be adapted because they are so severe, so the only solution is to compensate those who are affected. As they pointed out, “loss and damage has historically been seen as a polarising issue”.


Quote of the Day: “How do we close the gap between what’s necessary for our survival and what seems politically possible right now?” Former US president Barack Obama, realising the core of the

problem. The climate crisis can be thought of as our political cultures and beliefs running up against the harsh realities of the Earth system. The 2015 Paris Agreement went some way towards solving this, by creating a system whereby countries are required to return every five years with new plans.


NOVEMBER 9:

The major outcome of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow is known as the cover decision, a draft of which was released next day. The UK announced plans to fund nuclear technology. The UK government has committed £210 million to support the development of new nuclear reactors. These will be “small modular reactors” or SMRs, each capable of powering 1 million homes. The funding will help engineers at British aerospace and defence company Rolls-Royce develop the designs and take them through the regulatory process. But there is no commitment of actually buying any reactors.


The idea behind SMRs is that most nuclear power plants are bespoke, which drives up costs – helping explain why nuclear energy is so expensive. In addition, SMRs are meant to be mass-produced, and so cheaper. There will be other announcements – possibly including one about advanced cars powered by fossil fuels. UK prime minister Boris Johnson will return to Glasgow to meet with negotiators and push for “ambitious action” to close out the summit.


Quote of the Day: “We’ve got a whole generation that’s absolutely determined to do this.” Patrick Vallance, chief scientific adviser to the UK government.


NOVEMBER 10:

The first COP26 draft statement was released, with a promising role of fossil fuels in climate change. 24 countries and several car-makers vowed to end the sale of cars run on fossil fuels by 2040. Climate finance: that is, money flowing from developed countries to developing and emerging economies to help them both cut emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change. COP26 president Alok Sharma has pronounced himself “delighted” with the commitments made so far, noting that contributions to the Least Developed Countries Fund have topped $410 million and contributions to the Adaptation Fund have reached over $350 million. Once again, a reminder that all the way back in 2009, rich countries promised $100 billion a year by 2020 and they haven’t followed through. In 2019, the year for which we have the most recent data, they only managed $80 billion.


Quote of the day: “The climate crisis is a truth crisis.” Teenage climate activist Alexandria Villaseñor of Earth Uprising.


NOVEMBER 11:

Two biggest emitters agreed to work together to limit global warming, but the agreement is largely figurative, as an alliance to stop extracting oil and gas which hasn't been signed by the biggest oil and gas producers. Several countries have joined an alliance committed to cease future oil and gas production within their borders. The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA), the group now includes France, Sweden and Ireland – joining the initial leaders, Denmark and Costa Rica.


Other countries sort of signed up but sort of didn’t. Portugal, California and New Zealand committed to “significant concrete steps” to curb oil and gas production. Italy, the European Union’s second biggest oil producer, has become a “friend” of the agreement and says it will take future oil and gas extraction with the 2015 Paris Agreement.


Quote of the Day: “We are not there yet on the most critical issues.” COP26 President Alok Sharma, at a press conference.


NOVEMBER 12:

The leaders agreed that a final push was needed in adaptation, mitigation and finance and deliver on the goals of the Paris Agreement, working together to keep 1.5°C in reach and maintain momentum towards COP27 in Egypt.


via NDTV


On 13 November 2021, 197 countries that participated in the summit agreed to a new deal - The Glasgow Climate Pact, that aims at warding off climate change. The final agreement directly features coal, which is alone the biggest contributor to climate change. Previous COP agreements had not included coal, oil or gas, or other fossil fuels in general, as a major cause of climate change, thus the Glasgow Climate Pact is the first ever climate deal to precisely work out on reducing coal. The phrasing in the agreement depicts an intention to "phase down" use of coal, rather than to phase it out.



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1 Comment


Ishita Sukhija
Ishita Sukhija
Nov 15, 2021

I just loved the format

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