What is COP26? We explain how the climate change negotiations work and what is expected of the Glasgow summit

This November, world leaders and negotiators from each country will meet in Scotland for two weeks to discuss what actions can be taken to tackle climate change. It is a complex process that can be difficult to understand from the outside, but in essence it comes down to how international laws and institutions can help combat problems that no single country can solve on its own.

I worked for several years at the United Nations as a political and legal advisor, and I have also been part of international negotiations. Here I explain what is happening in those closed-door meetings, and why there is concern about the possibility that COP26 will not achieve its objectives.

What is COP26?

In 1992, a number of countries signed an international treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which established the fundamental norms and expectations for global cooperation on climate change. It was the first time that a majority of countries formally recognized the need to control greenhouse gas emissions, which are what cause global warming that is behind climate change.

This treaty has since known some updates, including that of 2015, when the Paris Climate Agreement was signed. Said document set the goal of limiting global warming “well below” two degrees Celsius, even reaching 1.5 degrees, to avoid catastrophic climate change.

COP26 will be the 26th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC. These “parties” are the 196 countries that ratified the treaty, to which must be added the European Union itself. The United Kingdom, in cooperation with Italy, will host this COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, from October 31 to November 12, 2021. The meeting will be held one year late because the COVID-19 pandemic forced postpone it in 2020.

Why are world leaders devoting so much energy to climate change?

The latest report by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in August 2021, warned in the harshest terms used so far that human activity is causing temperatures to rise from unequivocally and that climate change is accelerating, intensifying and spreading to all regions of the planet.

IPCC experts have explained that climate change has intensified extreme phenomena such as floods, droughts, severe heat waves, the reduction and extinction of species or the melting of the ice sheet at the poles, with the consequent rise in sea level. UN Secretary General António Guterres has described the report as “a code red for humanity.”

There are already many greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and they have been there for quite some time, so even in the most ambitious scenario of reducing emissions by countries, the world will experience an increase in temperatures for at least half of this century.

However, there is still a small window of opportunity. If in 2050 countries could reach a scenario of carbon neutrality, that could cause the rise in temperatures to remain below 1.5 degrees during the second half of the 21st century. What national leaders and negotiators are discussing right now is how to try to get as close to that goal as possible.

What will happen at COP26?

During the first days of the conference, around 120 heads of state (including President Joe Biden) and their representatives will meet to show their political commitment to slowing climate change.

When the heads of state leave, the delegations of each country, which are usually headed by their Minister of the Environment, begin a few days of negotiations, acts and bilateral meetings to make their positions clear, adopt new commitments and adhere to new initiatives. All this activity is supported by months of previous discussions, political documents and proposals, the latter elaborated by representatives of each country, by UN personnel or by external experts.

Non-governmental organizations and business leaders also attend COP26, and it also has an open-to-public section that includes sessions focused on topics such as the impact of climate change on small island states, forests or agriculture. This public aspect also offers exhibitions and other events.

The meeting concludes with the writing of a text that collects the results, and that must have the agreement of all countries. Guterres has already publicly expressed his disappointment with the outcome of COP25, and regarding COP26 the signs are not promising.

What do you hope to achieve at COP26?

The Paris Agreement obliges countries to update their national climate action plans every five years, which coincides with COP26. It is therefore expected that this year they will present ambitious plans for 2030, in which the so-called “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) will play a key role.

The Paris Agreement obliges countries to report on their NDCs, but gives them leeway in deciding how they should reduce their greenhouse emissions. Thus, in 2015 the initial emission reduction targets were too modest to limit the increase in temperatures to 1.5 degrees.

One of the key goals of COP26 is to expand these goals with a view to achieving carbon neutrality by mid-century.

Another objective of COP26 is to improve climate finance in order to help the poorest countries both in their transition to clean energy and in their general adaptation to climate change. This is a very important issue of justice for many developing countries, whose populations bear most of the burden of climate change, even though they have contributed the least to causing it. In 2009, rich countries pledged that they would contribute $ 100 billion annually until 2020 to help developing countries, a goal that has yet to be met. The United States, United Kingdom and the European Union, which are among the main historical contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, are increasing their funding commitments. And on the other hand, banks, companies, insurers and private investors are being asked to do more than they are doing so far.

There are other objectives, such as gradually eliminating the consumption of carbon or developing procedures that preserve, restore or regenerate natural carbon sinks, such as forests.

Another challenge that has derailed these types of conferences in the past has been the question of reaching an agreement that regulates the implementation of a carbon emissions trading system, something that was outlined in the Paris Agreement.

Are countries on track to meet international climate goals?

In September 2021, the UN warned that the review of targets carried out by countries had not been demanding enough, and that this would cause temperatures to rise 2.7 degrees by the end of the century. However, states are facing another challenge this fall that could influence their response: power outages have pushed prices for natural gas, coal and oil to peak in Europe and China.

China, which is the world’s largest emitting country, has not yet provided its NDC figure. Large fossil fuel producers such as Saudi Arabia, Russia or Australia do not seem willing to strengthen their competitors. India, a key player as it is the world’s second largest coal consumer, producer and importer, has also not yet committed to an emissions target.

There are other developing countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa or Mexico that are also important. So is Brazil, whose government, led by Jair Bolsonaro, has allowed deforestation to increase in the Amazon, the largest rainforest in the world, which is also key as a source of biodiversity and for its role in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

What will happen if the objectives are not achieved at COP26?

Many people participating in the negotiations believe that COP26 will not achieve the goal of achieving commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions strong enough so that by 2030 they will have been reduced by 45% from current levels. This means that the world will not be in a good position to achieve emissions neutrality by 2050, nor to achieve the goal of keeping the increase in temperatures below 1.5 degrees.

But conference organizers argue that keeping the rise in temperatures below 1.5 degrees is still possible. Former US Secretary of State John Kerry, who has led the US negotiating mission, is hopeful that a sufficient number of countries will adopt more ambitious emission reduction targets by 2025, and that this momentum will get others to join. them.

The price of failure will be astronomical. Some studies argue that the difference between 1.5 and 2 degrees can mean that certain island states are submerged under the sea, the death of coral reefs, extreme heat waves, floods, fires and general difficulties to obtain good crops.

This would translate into numerous premature deaths, more mass immigration, great economic losses, huge tracts of uninhabitable land, and the outbreak of violent conflicts over food and resources (what the UN Secretary General has called “a hellish future”). . (I)