COP26 opens in the Scottish city of Glasgow a day after the Group of 20 economies failed to commit to a 2050 target to cut net carbon emissions, a deadline widely cited as necessary to prevent even more difficult global warming.
Two days of speeches by world leaders starting Monday will be followed by technical negotiations, whereby no deal may be struck until near or even after the event’s end date of November 12th.
without solutions
Instead, their talks in Rome recognized only the “key importance” of stopping net emissions “by or near the middle of the century”.
The G20 did not set a timetable for phasing out coal and watered down promises to cut emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas several times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
“As citizens around the world, we urge you to confront the climate emergency,” Swedish activist Greta Thunberg wrote on Twitter. “Not next year. Not next month. Now.”
World leaders will talk about their records on climate change and, in some cases, make new pledges within two weeks of negotiations.
At the opening ceremony, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, according to advance extracts from his speech: “Humanity has long pounced on the clock on climate change. It is one minute until midnight and we need to act now.”
“If we don’t take climate change seriously today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow,” he added.
Ambitious commitments required
COP26, which has been postponed for a year due to the Corona pandemic, aims to maintain the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, a level that scientists say will avoid its most devastating consequences.
The conference needs to secure more ambitious pledges to cut emissions, climate finance billions for developing countries, and end the rules for implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement, which nearly 200 countries have signed.
Existing pledges to cut emissions will allow the average surface temperature of the planet to rise by 2.7 degrees Celsius this century, which the United Nations says will increase the devastation already caused by climate change by intensifying storms, exposing more people to deadly heat and floods, and raising sea levels. . and destruction of natural habitats.
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