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Qualified as the “last chance” for nations to stop progressive global warming, COP26, which this year is being held in Glasgow, Scotland, plays a crucial role in the future of our planet’s climate. Before there were other editions that were transcendental in the fight against the climate emergency, such as COP1 in Berlin, COP3, from which the Kyoto Protocol emerged; and COP21, which launched the Paris Agreement.
The first COP was held in Berlin in 1995. At that summit sponsored by the United Nations Organization, it was recognized for the first time that there was a problem with global warming and that it was in the hands of the human being to be able to change it.
Berlin introduced the need for the nations of the world to meet each year to talk about the climate with previously rarely heard speeches, such as the one delivered by then-German Environment Minister Angela Merkel. “We in the industrialized nations must change our ideas of what we see as the good life,” the future German chancellor declared that time.
At the beginning of these climate summits, the main international actors called to act were the developed countries. And with good reason. By then, they had been emitting polluting gases into the atmosphere for more than a century due to their early industrialization and were considered the main causes of the increase in temperatures, the progressive melting of the poles and the consequent rise in sea level.
The Kyoto Protocol resulted from COP3 in 1997
The requests for the climate launched during the first summits were answered at the COP3 in Kyoto, Japan, held in 1997. The conclusions of this act resulted in the Kyoto Protocol, a historic agreement in which the signatory countries committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5% by 2012 compared to 1990 levels.
So 192 countries signed an exciting environmental agreement that initially seemed to compromise the great powers.
However, Kyoto never lived up to expectations. It is true that an attempt was made to regulate emissions with sanctions against countries that did not meet the objective, but the main obstacle was the non-ratification of the United States and the subsequent withdrawal of its signature in 2001. In addition, some tools presented, such as the market for The buying and selling of emission permits helped the great powers to maintain or even increase their emissions.
The following COPs were progressively showing the lack of intention of many countries to make the climate agreements binding.
The Paris Agreement, the new hope for the climate that started from COP21 in 2015
The 2015 Paris Agreement emerged from COP21. This pact was ratified by up to 191 countries thanks to its flexibility. In this document, the obligations and sanctions imposed in Kyoto were set aside, in order to bet that each country would voluntarily regulate its emissions.
The objective was for the maximum number of nations to commit to trying to slow global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, since exceeding this figure implies very drastic changes in the climate, alterations that could become irreversible and involving floods, prolonged droughts or the destruction of the poles. A difficult goal, but not impossible.
Its main obstacle was, again, the United States, which although initially signed and ratified the agreement, withdrew after the arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency. The US march under the excuse of the economic consequences of the measures was a serious blow to the Paris Agreement, taking into account that this country alone produces 14% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But his recent re-entry into the deal, the product of Joe Biden’s arrival in the White House, opened a thread of hope for climate action.
Now the Glasgow COP26 is presumed as historic, since it is considered by activists and scientists as the last opportunity to avoid the irreversible, if it is possible to bet on a binding change that involves the maximum number of countries, in order to stop warming of the planet.
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