Leaders can 'make or break hope' for climate salvation
GLASGOW, United Kingdom — Across 25 UN climate conferences since 1995, only twice have more than 110 world leaders joined the fray to confront the spectre of global warming. As they do so again Monday in Glasgow, an unspoken question looms: Copenhagen or Paris?
Will COP26, in other words, more closely resemble the Danish diplomatic debacle of 2009, or the triumph that six years later led to the first climate treaty in which all nations vowed to shrink their carbon footprint and collectively cap Earth's rising temperature?
Either way, few would doubt that the hope of keeping the planet livable for future generations rests squarely in their hands.
Something else is certain, according to a mountain of scientific evidence: the world has dithered for so long that half-measures will not do.
Only transformative action -- slashing global emissions in half by 2030, and to net-zero by mid-century -- will stave off impacts far more cataclysmic that the deadly heatwaves, floods, droughts and wildfires already ravaging communities across the globe.
"It's one minute to midnight and we need to act now," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was expected to say early Monday.
"If we don't get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow."
In a stark reminder of what is at stake, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said Sunday the years 2015 to 2021 were the seven hottest on record, if trends for 2021 hold firm.
Adding to the pressure are gathering global protests, led in part by Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who was mobbed on Saturday by a scrum of media photographers as she arrived by train.
Hopes unfulfilled
And yet, the signals on what to expect from COP26 remain decidedly mixed, starting with who's coming to the two-day summit and who's not.
President Xi Jinping of China, the world's largest emitter, has not left his country during the pandemic and there is no indication he will attend.
Vladimir Putin of Russia, another major polluter, will also be a no-show.
US President Joe Biden, France's Emmanuel Macron, India's Narendra Modi and Australia's Scott Morrison will all be present.
It was hoped that a G20 summit of major economies ending Sunday in Rome would boost momentum at the 13-day talks.
But on key issues -- notably deepening commitment to slash carbon pollution and mobilise climate finance for poor nations -- the two-day meet failed to deliver.
"The G20 should have provided the lightning bolt that the COP26 climate talks so desperately need, but they responded with vague promises and platitudes," said Oxfam senior advisory Jorn Kalinksi, reflecting widespread disappointment.
G20 nations account for 80 percent of global GDP and nearly the same proportion of greenhouse gas emissions.
Even UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was not impressed: "While I welcome the G20's recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled," he tweeted on Sunday.
Confidence undermined
COP26 President and British minister Alok Sharma said that G20 nations -- including China, the US, India, the EU and Russia -- "can make or indeed break the hope of keeping 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach."
The cornerstone goal of the Paris Agreement is limiting global warming at "well below 2C" compared to preindustrial levels.
But as devastating impacts and new science have accumulated, the treaty's aspirational cap of 1.5C has become the de facto target.
An August bombshell report from the UN's climate science body warned that Earth's average temperature will hit that threshold around 2030 -- a decade earlier than projected only three years ago.
In a joint communique, G20 nations endorsed the collective goal of limiting warming to 1.5C, but a tally of newly revised carbon-cutting pledges would still lead to "catastrophic" warming of 2.7C, according to a UN report last week.
Only India has yet to submit a revised "nationally determined contribution," and hopeful rumors suggest Modi may announce new efforts on Monday to curb carbon emissions.
"If he feels confident enough that there's going to be financing and technology assistance from Europe, the US, Japan, and others, he might signal that India is willing to update its NDC," said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at climate and energy think tank E3G.
But the failure of rich countries to cough up $100 billion a year starting in 2020 to help developing nations lower emissions and adapt -- a pledge first made in 2009 -- had undermined the confidence of the Global South and will complicate the already fraught talks, expert say.
Bookmark this page for updates on the United Nations climate summit, known as COP26. Photo courtesy of AFP/Tolga Akmen
Singapore announces it aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, giving a firm date for the first time, and will look at using hydrogen as a major power source.
The city-state targets for carbon emissions to peak in 2030 at 60 million tonnes, a reduction of five million tonnes from the previous goal, Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said.
The Southeast Asian nation also has plans to look at developing low carbon hydrogen as a major power supply in the long term. — AFP
Australia will present a more ambitious UN emissions target "very soon" and is bidding to co-host a COP summit with Pacific island neighbours, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Thursday, signalling a ground shift in climate policy.
During a first solo overseas visit since her centre-left government was sworn in, Wong admitted that on the climate, "Australia has neglected its responsibility" under past administrations.
She told hosts in Fiji's capital Suva that there would be no more "disrespecting" Pacific nations or "ignoring" their calls to act on climate change.
"We were elected on a platform of reducing emissions by 43 percent by 2030 and reaching net-zero by 2050," Wong said. — AFP
Countries have proposed to hold an extra biodiversity meeting in Nairobi in June as talks in Geneva tasked with saving nature entered their final day Tuesday without an agreement.
In a document uploaded on the conference website, dated Monday, countries suggest holding a new meeting in the Kenyan capital between June 21 and 26 to "continue negotiations" on the document and other issues.
The decision is subject to official approval by the Geneva meeting before it wraps up later Tuesday. — AFP
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Sunday hails a global accord to speed up action against climate change as "truly historic" and "the beginning of the end for coal power".
But he says his "delight at this progress" at the UN COP26 summit in Glasgow was "tinged with disappointment" because of a failure to secure the agreement of all countries to phase out hydrocarbons.
"Those for whom climate change is already a matter of life and death, who can only stand by as their islands are submerged, their farmland turned to desert, their homes battered by storms, they demanded a high level of ambition from this summit," says Johnson. — AFP
A UN climate summit text on Saturday urges nations to accelerate the phase-out of unfiltered coal and "inefficient" fossil fuel subsidies, after large emitters tried to remove the mention of polluting fuels.
The text, which comes after two weeks of frantic negotiations at the COP26 summit in Glasgow, omitted any reference to specific finance for "loss and damage" -- the mounting cost of global heating so far -- which has been a key demand of poorer nations.
The mention on Saturday of fossil fuels was weaker than a previous draft, which called on countries to "accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels". — AFP
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