COP26 which was delayed by a year due to the pandemic was held in Glasgow, United Kingdom. The climate summit has come to an end with a lot of drama and action taking place.
The first week showed a lot of promising speeches and ambitious targets by the national leaders. Followed by the second week showed a lot of blaming and calling out names. Protestors and environmentalists have called COP26 nothing but a big PR stunt with a lot of empty speeches one after the other.
After 2 weeks of hard negotiations, the member countries finally agreed on the topics needed to save the world from global warming. Including providing the money to the less developed world, cutting greenhouse emissions the governments also negotiated on phasing out coal. First time in history, cutting the usage of coal has been mentioned in any agreement of green negotiation.
Though making a lot of negotiations the Glasgow Climate Pact is weaker than expected. Glasgow did benefit from the presence as many of them also announced new and enhanced climate actions. However, the final agreement was a mixed bag, as most such pacts invariably are.
The climate Mitigation
Achieving the 1.5C target was the most critical action to be emphasized. Further, the pact has the following written in it:
- Countries need to strengthen their 2030 action plan by the year 2022.
- Prepare a work program for urgently scaling up mitigation ambition and implementation.
- Prepare an annual meeting report for the countries progress
- Requested the United Nations Secretary General to officiate a world leader meeting in 2023 to scale-up ambition of climate action
- Reduction of coal usage as a fuel, this is the first-time coal has been openly mentioned in COP statement and decision.
Every action at the time of implementation has financial implications. A huge amount of money is required for an ambitious target. Money has always been in short supply despite developed countries being under obligation to provide financial support. Despite these promises never have the target of $100 billion been fulfilled. Reaffirming this target will be arranged in 2023, only time can tell whether it will be achieved or not.
Damage and Losses To climate
With every year passing, we are being informed of the increased frequency of climate disasters hitting us and causing large scale devastation and financial losses. Small countries and the island states are the worst affected with no institutional mechanism to compensate for the loss. Neither is the help provided to them causing a huge burden on their economies. Arranging funds is established only as a dialogue which is a letdown for COP26.
INDIAN STAND ON CLIMATE
Indian delegate called the COP26 summit a success. The Indian contingent was led by Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav.
Despite India’s promising ambitions, India along with China are in a negative spotlight after opposing the commitment to phase out coal. They emphasized phase down rather.
In the first week of the summit, India was in the headlines as Prime Minister Narendra Modi pledged to cut emissions to net zero by 2070, raise the renewable energy share to 50% in the energy mix and reduce 1 billion tonnes of carbon emission by 2030. China, which otherwise shares a tense relationship with its neighbour, was a strong ally throughout the final negotiations.
The summit went overtime till Saturday night. It was due to end on Friday.
All in all no matter what it all boils down to the willpower of the countries and their representative to help the world fight climate change. Else protestors calling the summit a PR stunt and empty promises will stand true and the world will cross the tipping point from which there is no turning back.