Hello. COP26,
the most important climate change summit in six years, is almost upon
us. Here’s a news digest, followed by an interview with one of the
architects of the
2015 Paris Agreement.
A
UN analysis today revealed a bleak upward trajectory for global CO2
emissions, despite new CO2-curbing plans by scores of countries,
including major emitters such as the US and the European Union’s 27
member states.
Global
emissions will rise 16 per cent by 2030 on 2010 levels under
governments’ plans put forward since the start of 2020, according to the
synthesis report from UN Climate Change. That puts the world ruinously
off track for the 45 per cent cut that climate scientists say is needed to meet the Paris deal’s goal of holding global warming to 1.5°C.
“This
report is really showing us sobering numbers,” says Patricia Espinosa
at UN Climate Change. “But it is also still showing the progress to the
1.5°C goal is possible. The latest IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report says there is still this window open. It’s a very, very small window, that is true. The 1.5°C goal is, in my view, alive.”
There
are some reasons to be hopeful. One is that the report does not count
political announcements that have not yet been translated into official
plans submitted to the UN, such as China’s promise to peak emissions before 2030. A second is that the 16 per cent increase ignores pledges in developing countries’ plans that are conditional on greater finance or support from developed countries.
Thirdly, looking at the 113 parties to the Paris Agreement that
did put forward new plans, their emissions will decrease 12 per cent by
2030, compared with 2010 levels.
The COP26 summit, due to begin on 1 November, will be key to keeping on track for 1.5°C, but some green groups have called
for the meeting to be delayed, because not all delegates will have had
access to covid-19 vaccines in their home country. In response, a group
of nations vulnerable to climate change insisted
that it must go ahead. There remains no sign or hint from COP26’s
hosts, the UK and Italian governments, that the summit won’t go ahead.
Meanwhile,
US climate envoy John Kerry and the COP26 president Alok Sharma have
both recently been in China, meeting in-person with the country’s chief
climate negotiator, Xie Zhenhua, and with other officials via video
link. It’s not clear the visits have yielded the results the US and UK
hoped for. Instead of issuing a new emissions reductions plan, China
warned the US that cooperation on climate change could not be separated
from differences on other issues. The Chinese government also
argued it is cutting emissions
faster than countries have in the past, while conveniently ignoring the
fact that the technologies to do so are now much more mature.
Next
Monday will be an important stepping stone towards COP26. UN
secretary-general António Guterres is gathering a select group of heads
of state, including Boris Johnson of the UK and Joe Biden of the US, to
elicit greater ambition on emissions reductions plans from countries, in
particular the G20 group of nations.
Espinosa,
referring to today’s UN synthesis analysis, says: “I certainly hope
this report is going to be one element for reflection for leaders when
they meet on Monday. It shows everyone needs to increase ambition in all
areas.”
The challenge facing Guterres was also laid bare two days ago by an analysis – separate to the UN one – released by the non-profit Climate Action Tracker.
It found that three G20 countries – India, Saudi Arabia and Turkey –
have yet to even publish a new plan. Many other G20 members – including
Australia and Indonesia – have put forward new plans with the same old
targets.
All
this adds up to what might seem like a tough backdrop for COP26. To
inject a dose of optimism into this month’s newsletter, I talked with
Christiana Figueres, Espinosa’s predecessor. As the former executory
secretary of UN Climate Change and one of the key players who drove home
the Paris deal, she has a great insight into the summit’s prospects.
You can watch the full video interview by signing up for New Scientist’s Sustainable Future event on 25 September
. In the meantime, here are some highlights.
Adam Vaughan: What message did you take away from last month’s IPCC report?
Christiana
Figueres: I was surprised by the categorical language that was used by
scientists and then approved by governments for this first section of
the sixth assessment report. Previous reports have been couched in much
more cautionary and conditional language, this just gives it to us
square, right through to the bare truth.
What strikes you about the extreme weather we’ve seen lately? Do we risk treating this as normal now?
The
sad fact is climate change and extreme weather have become the norm.
That is actually alarming that we now see that as the norm. We are never
going to completely “solve” climate change. We are now in a state of
the planet and human history in which we will have to deal with a
permanently changed atmosphere and global environment.
But at the same
time, I’ve never seen as much press coverage and concern, on the part of
institutions, civil society, organisations, of financial institutions,
as with this IPCC report – so that is a good thing.
Do these sort of impacts at 1°C of warming highlight the limit of adapting to climate change?
People
dying in their basements because of flooding, in New York City, that
was a huge wake-up call. Yes, we are struggling to adapt. What that
reminds us is there is an inverted relationship between mitigation and
adaptation. The longer we wait to reduce our emissions to responsible
levels, the more we will be forced to adapt – or the more we will be
unable to adapt.
How well-prepared are we ahead of COP26 compared to the same time two months ahead of the Paris summit in 2015?
My
memory, but human memory in general, is pathetically short. We look
back at Paris in 2015 and assume everything was already ironed out and
it was a very smooth walk into the Paris Agreement. Not the case. It was
a very, very difficult negotiation all the way to the last minute.
Secondly, we are in a very, very, difficult situation this year. The
fact no one has really been able to travel to get together, the fact
delegates have not been able to get into a room to reach common ground
for basically the good of two years. That’s very hard on a negotiation.
Fortunately, the US has come forward with a doubling up of its effort,
the EU is at a 55 per cent cut [by 2030]. Fortunately, we do have some
critical countries coming forward, but not all. And that’s the concern.
Should COP26 be delayed, as some groups have called for?
If we didn’t have a deadline looming over, then we could say “oh let’s delay”. But let’s remember we’ve already delayed [COP26] one year.
No one has informed me we are delaying when 2030 is going to hit. And
that is our deadline. At 2030, we have to be at one half of emissions of
where we are now. So I very much applaud and respect the efforts of the
COP presidency to hold this COP with as normal conditions as possible.
What are the big issues going to be at COP26, in the run-up and at the summit?
This
meeting is the deadline for all countries, I underline all countries,
to come forward with their new higher goals and much more ambitious
nationally determined contributions [emissions reduction plans].
In
addition to that, we have to have the promise fulfilled of the funding
for developing countries, the famous $100bn [a year] that has been on
the table forever, and should have been fulfilled by 2020. [Thirdly] we have to make more commitments to adaptation, because we have delayed so much.
And
then, perhaps most difficult of all, the price on carbon pollution.
That is the famous Article 6 that was not agreed to at Paris in 2015,
and has been straggling along ever since then without agreement among
all countries.
Can
the differences between countries be overcome on Article 6, about how
countries and companies can trade their emissions reductions?
Absolutely.
It’s not simple but it’s also not rocket science. Furthermore, we don’t
start from zero. We had a thriving carbon market operating in the
global north and south, called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM),
under the Kyoto Protocol [the climate treaty before the Paris
Agreement]. It had its rules, regulations, methodologies, it was
actually a very mature system. We need an upgrade of the CDM, and
inserted into the Paris Agreement. Let no one say we don’t know how to
do it, because we do.
What would your definition of a good outcome be for COP26?
We
are expecting every country, every head of state in fact, to come to
the COP and announce what she or he are actually going to commit to in
terms of emissions reductions in the next five or 10 years. For me, the
expected outcome is that the sum total of that cannot guarantee that
we’re going to be at [on track for] 1.5°C by 2030. That is unrealistic.
But it should put us on the path towards [having] one half emissions by
2030. That for me would be successful." | | |
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