Nearly 120 world leaders gathered in Glasgow on Monday (1) to address what scientists and health experts say is the world’s biggest crisis: climate change.
The meeting came on the heels of a G20 summit that had at best mixed results on climate, with the leaders of the world’s richest countries failing to agree on key targets such as a firm deadline for the end. of coal energy.
Here are the main conclusions of the first full day of the UN COP26 climate summit:
Biden’s apology
US President Joe Biden apologized to his fellow world leaders for the fact that the United States withdrew the Paris Agreement under the Trump administration.
“I don’t think I should apologize, but I do apologize for the fact that the United States – the last government – withdrew from the Paris Accords and put us in a tight spot,” Biden said in Glasgow.
Biden re-entered the deal within hours of taking office in January.
As world leaders made their opening remarks, Biden sat in the back of the huge plenary, maintaining the tradition of alphabetizing seats.
“We will demonstrate to the world that the United States is not just back at the table, but hopefully leading by the power of our example,” the president said during his opening address.
But while Biden adopted an ambitious tone during his speech, telling attendees that his “government is working overtime to show that our climate commitment is a matter of action, not words,” a shadow hung over his climate agenda across the ocean in Washington.
Democratic lawmakers have debated, and so far have not reached an agreement, an economic package that includes $555 billion in climate change provisions.
UK brings the big names
The UK government, which is hosting the UN climate summit in Glasgow, has done its best to pressure world leaders that now is the time to act on climate.
At the opening ceremony, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told his fellow heads of state that they could be like James Bond, the famous (albeit fictional) 007 agent.
“We may not feel very much like James Bond – we don’t all necessarily look like James Bond – but we have the opportunity and we have a duty to make this summit the moment when humanity finally started, started disarming that bomb,” he said.
“The Doomsday device is real, and the clock is ticking at the furious pace of hundreds of billions of turbines and systems … covering the Earth with a suffocating blanket of CO2,” he said.
Royals – both royal and of the TV-attendance variety – also kept the pitch, with Prince Charles encouraging leaders to work together, and celebrated naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough telling them that future generations would judge them for their actions during this conference.
Later in the day, Queen Elizabeth II welcomed world leaders in a video address replayed during a reception.
“For over seventy years, I have been fortunate to meet and meet many of the world’s greatest leaders. And maybe I understood a little bit about what makes them special,” the Queen said in her speech. “It has sometimes been observed that what leaders do for their people today is government and politics. But what they do for the people of tomorrow – that’s the statesman.”
India makes zero emission pledge
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made headlines on Monday by announcing a net zero emissions target, promising India will become carbon neutral by 2070.
While it was a big announcement, as India has yet to set a date for its net zero ambition, the 2070 target is a decade later than China’s, and two decades later the world as a whole needs to hit it. net zero emissions to prevent temperatures from rising beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.
But Ulka Kelkar, director of the climate program at WRI India, an environmental research organization, said that given India’s economic development and energy mix, the target date should not be compared to those in the United States or Europe.
“It was much more than we expected,” said Kelkar.” Net-zero became a topic of public discourse just six months ago. This is something very new for Indians.” “Just having this concept understood in India will already send a very strong signal to all sectors of the industry,” he added.
With India’s announcement, all of the top ten coal-energy countries have committed to net zero, according to climate study group Ember.
Disappointment of small nations
Delegates from smaller nations expressed their disappointment with the action (or rather, inaction) of the richest nations in the world.
Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, an island already deeply threatened by rising sea levels, warned that the climate crisis facing her country is dangerous. She said it is “code red for China, the US, Europe and India.”
The Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, told the CNN who was “encouraged by the rising ambitions” set by world leaders at the COP26 summit, but also expressed disappointment, saying that the targets set did not go “far enough to contain global temperature rises of 1.5 degrees Celsius. ”
And Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo said he is not optimistic about what the COP26 conference can achieve.
“We’ve heard it all before. What we need is action,” said Cortizo. “I’m not optimistic that it will be enough.”
Covid-19 measures hinder negotiations
COP26 chairman, British lawmaker Alok Sharma, said being able to hold face-to-face negotiations despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic was a key objective of his presidency.
“For me it was vitally important that we had a physical meeting where each country could sit at the table, the biggest emitters, along with the smaller nations, those on the front lines of climate change, and could look at each other on the I look as part of this negotiation,” he told reporters on Sunday.
But keeping the event without Covid was a challenge.
All participants were asked to wear masks and undergo daily coronavirus testing. And although the place is huge (about 1 km from one end to the other), the large number of people in the place makes social distance difficult.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the body in charge of the negotiations, admitted that the pandemic is causing problems. For example, due to social distance, the largest room reserved for negotiations can only have 144 seats – although there are 193 parties to be represented at the conference.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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