For many, this is the make-or-break moment in efforts to save the planet. The first two days of COP26 in Glasgow were a mixed bag of progress and hot air. But, with world leaders leaving the summit and going back to their countries as of Wednesday, the delegations will continue talks until 12 November, with the hope that a joint declaration can be reached. It will not be easy.
One tangible achievement so far is the agreement of the world leaders to end deforestation by 2030, as more than 100 world leaders have promised to end and reverse deforestation within 10 years, in the COP26 climate summit’s first major deal. The pledge includes almost £14bn ($19.2bn) of public and private funds. Some of the funding will also go towards developing countries to restore damaged land, tackle wildfires and support indigenous communities.
Brazil - where whole swathes of the Amazon rainforest have been cut down - was among the signatories on Tuesday, along with China, Russia, Canada, Indonesia, the Congo, the US and the UK, among other countries that cover some 85 per cent of the world’s forests. More than 30 of the world’s biggest financial companies - including Aviva, Schroders and Axa - have also promised to end investment in activities linked to deforestation.
Experts welcomed the move but warned that a previous deal, which 40 countries signed in 2014, has failed to slow deforestation. Although the Glasgow agreement includes 100 countries, among them Brazil and China, unlike the 2014 agreement, it remains a non-legally binding agreement, and there is also no oversight mechanism to ensure that countries will comply. But if the deal can be implemented it will make a huge difference in world efforts to reduce CO2 emissions.
In a separate announcement, at least £1.25 billion worth of funding will be given directly to indigenous peoples and local communities by governments and philanthropists for their role in protecting forests. But the promised funds still fall far short of what some believe is needed. Nonetheless, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is hosting the global meeting in Glasgow, seems delighted with the deforestation promise. On Tuesday, he said to the delegations “more leaders than ever before” - a total of 110 - had made the “landmark” commitment. “We have to stop the devastating loss of our forests,” he said - and “end the role of humanity as nature’s conqueror, and instead become nature’s custodian”.
Governments of 28 countries also committed to removing deforestation from the global trade of food and other agricultural products such as palm oil, soya and cocoa. These industries drive forest loss by cutting down trees to make room for animals to graze or crops to grow. A £1.1 billion fund will be established to protect the world’s second largest tropical rainforest in the Congo Basin. Another obvious achievement is the re-joining of the US to the High Ambition Coalition at the UN climate talks, the group of developed and developing countries that ensured the 1.5 C goal was a key pillar of the Paris Agreement.
The decision by the world’s biggest economy and second biggest emitter, after China, to return to the High Ambition Coalition group of countries marks a significant boost to attempts to focus the COP26 summit on limiting temperature rises to 1.5C, the tougher of the two goals of the Paris Agreement. On Tuesday the coalition, which brought together scores of countries at the 2015 Paris talks, called on the international community to step up efforts on greenhouse gas emissions and phasing out coal, consistent with a 1.5C limit, and urge rich nations to double the amount of climate finance they make available for poor countries to adapt to the impacts of the climate crisis. They also want to bring an end to subsidies for fossil fuels.
America’s presence at the climate summit was a positive development for the world’s efforts to confront global warming, after former US president Donald Trump impeded any serious progress by his withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, questioning the calamity of global warming and encouraging other world leaders, like the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, to violate their commitments of the Paris summit.
Following the meeting of the G20 in Rome, where the leading economies failed to reach an agreement on the phase out of domestic coal power, US President Joe Biden in his speech to the Glasgow climate summit said this was a “decisive decade in which we have an opportunity to prove ourselves”. He urged world leaders to come together to prevent the worst effects of climate change but stopped short of announcing any further green ambitions or fresh emission targets.
“We are standing at an inflection point in world history,” he said, describing climate change as an existential threat. “We can keep the goal of limiting global warming of 1.5C within reach if we come together. That’s what COP is all about. Glasgow must be the kick-off of a decade of ambition.” Biden ended his remarks with “May God save the planet”, which received warm applause.
Meanwhile, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in his speech to the COP26 that his country won’t hit net-zero emissions until 2070. The 2070 deadline is ten years later than China’s 2060 goal, and 20 years behind the 2050 date the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said the world must hit to keep global average temperatures from soaring 1.5C above what they were in pre-industrial times. The announcement follows months of discussions involving Modi and other world leaders and climate diplomats, including on the side-lines of the G20 in Rome on the weekend.
Many activists were dismayed by the announcement. “Twenty years is too late for the planet. Scientists and the UN are pushing for 2050 commitment. For India to say, sorry, we can only make it in 2070 is very disappointing. It is not good enough. It is catastrophic for the planet.” Tommy Raul, an activist with ActionAid in the UK, told Al-Ahram Weekly.
Nonetheless, India said it would reduce carbon intensity, a measure that considers economic growth by assessing emissions per GDP unit, by 45 per cent by 2030 from 2005 levels. This is an improvement on a previous target of 33 per cent set in 2016. Modi said half of the country’s electricity will come from renewable sources by 2030. This would be an increase from the target set in 2016 for 40 per cent by 2030. However, Modi said this increase in ambition should be matched by an increase in climate finance commitments from developed nations to developing countries — to the tune of $1 trillion.
In a sobering speech to open the historic Glasgow COP26 summit, Johnson warned that time is running out for saving the planet and demanded they act now for the sake of their kids and grandkids. In his usual flamboyant style, the PM used Britain’s most famous spy, James Bond to emphasis his point, saying Bond is usually found “desperately trying to work out which coloured wire to pull to turn it off, while a red digital clock ticks down remorselessly to a detonation that will end human life as we know it. We are in roughly the same position, my fellow global leaders, as James Bond today,” he warned. “Except that the tragedy is that this is not a movie, and the doomsday device is real.”
The two-week summit in Glasgow is seen as the last moment before that doomsday. If the world does not act now, tomorrow will be too late, many activists and climate experts say. The picture is not all doom and gloom, however. There are some important successes. For example, progress has been made on issues such as methane, a greenhouse gas that can heat the globe 80 times more than carbon dioxide, which comes from animal husbandry, agricultural waste, oil drilling and other fossil fuel exploration.
The European Union and America have formed a partnership to reduce global methane emissions by 2030. Also on the plus side, the cost of renewable energy and other green technologies has fallen in recent years and they are now as cheap as fossil fuels in most parts of the world. Electric vehicle technology has also developed rapidly, and new fuels such as hydrogen are being developed. So the world may be on the right track, after all, but time and money are everything. As Raul put it, “We need to see climate leadership now.”
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