The COP26 UN climate talks in Glasgow have finished and the gavel has come down on the Glasgow Climate Pact agreed by all 197 countries. I...
The COP26 UN climate talks in Glasgow have finished and the gavel has come down on the Glasgow Climate Pact agreed by all 197 countries.
If the 2015 Paris Agreement provided the framework for countries to tackle climate change then Glasgow, six years on, was the first major test of this high-water mark of global diplomacy.
So what have we learnt from two weeks of leaders’ statements, massive protests and side deals on coal, stopping fossil fuel finance and deforestation, plus the final signed Glasgow Climate Pact?
From phasing out coal to carbon market loopholes, here is what you need to know:
1. Cutting emissions
The Glasgow Climate Pact is incremental progress and not the breakthrough moment needed to curb the worst impacts of climate change. The British government as host and therefore president of Conference of the Parties 26 wanted to “keep 1.5 degrees Celsius alive”, the stronger goal of the Paris Agreement. But at best we can say the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is on life support – it has a pulse but it’s nearly dead.
The Paris Agreement says temperatures should be limited to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and countries should “pursue efforts” to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Before Conference of the Parties 26, the...
