As Cop26 kicks off, what was said and done at the World Leaders Summit?
AJ Camacho
On November 1 and 2, the World Leaders Summit initiated Cop26, the United Nations Climate Change Conference happening in Glasgow through November 12. And attending the conference on Tuesday was Northern Ireland’s own environment minister, Edwin Poots.
It was hoped by organisers that the summit would “put forward high level ambition and action towards securing global net zero and keeping 1.5C in reach; adapting to protect communities and natural habitats; and mobilising finance.” With the Summit over and nuts-and-bolts negotiations beginning Wednesday, here are the highlights of what has been said and done in Scotland so far.
Calls to action
As expected, much of the World Leaders Summit was rhetorical, emphasising the severity of the threat that climate change poses and the need to take action. Chiefly, this came from figures with soft power but relatively little direct influence on policy.
Boris Johnson addressed world leaders in Glasgow today
United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres spoke shortly after Boris Johnson opened the event: “It’s time to say, enough. Enough of brutalising biodiversity. Enough of killing ourselves with carbon. Enough of treating nature like a toilet. Enough of burning and drilling and mining our way deeper. We are digging our own graves.”
Sir David Attenborough provided live narration for a film detailing the history of Earth’s climate and how temperatures parallel levels of CO2 in the atmosphere: “Everything we’ve achieved in the last 10,000 years was enabled by the stability” of global temperatures, which did not vary by more than one degree until this decade.
As a result, deadly natural disasters like floods, wildfires, and heatwaves have become drastically more common and intense. Attenborough added loftily, “A new industrial revolution powered by millions of sustainable innovations is essential and is, indeed, already beginning. We will all share in the benefits, affordable clean energy, healthy air, and enough food to sustain us all.”
Specific proposals
While also partaking in grand rhetoric, some leaders put forth specific proposals. Prince Charles both emphasised the “war-like stance” the world must take and the role of free market economics in solving the crisis, referring to his Terra Carta plan for sustainable private markets: “Here we need a vast, military style campaign to marshal the strength of the global private sector” using “clear market signals” like “putting a price on carbon.”
Mia Mottley, prime minister of Barbados, compared the climate crisis to the Gordian Knot and “the central banks of the wealthiest countries” to the sword that can cut it down by investing in green energy, agriculture, and transportation transitions: “I say to you today in Glasgow that an annual increase in the FDIs of $500bn a year for 20 years put in a trust to finance the transition is the real gap, secretary-general, that we need to close, not the $50bn being proposed for adaptation... This is the sword we need to wield.”
Action taken
In addition to rhetorical ambition, climate action appears to be accelerating with major collaborations on green innovation, methane, and deforestation.
Led by the EU, UK, and US, 105 countries have signed the “global methane pledge” to cut emissions of methane - one of the strongest greenhouse gases - by 30 per cent by 2030.
There could be major collaborations on green innovation
Representing 50 per cent of the world’s economy, 35 world leaders have announced support for the “Glasgow breakthrough agenda”, which aims to make clean technologies the most affordable choice for most economic sectors throughout the world by 2030 through innovation investment and subsidies.
Perhaps most notably, leaders have pledged to stop and reverse deforestation by the end of the decade. Countries which are home to massive forests, including Brazil, will sign up to the proposal. In a press release, the Cop comms team said, “The pledge is backed by $12bn in public and $7.2bn in private funding.”
In all, the countries that endorsed the decision account for 85 per cent of the world’s forests, which absorb around one third of global CO2 released from burning fossil fuels each year, the press release added. Backing the Glasgow leaders’ declaration on forest and land use are commitments from 30 financial institutions, with assets equivalent to 10 per cent of global GDP, to “eliminate investment in activities linked to deforestation.”
Though these plans are generally more detailed than previous commitments with the Paris Agreement and other climate conferences, they will remain meaningless until individual states make them policy.
With more agreements expected to be reached and the high-level segments of negotiations still to come, keep following The Scoop on our website and Twitter for updates on Cop26 Glasgow.
AJ Camacho is a reporter at The Scoop and is attending Cop26