Important promises and commitments, NGOs on the sidelines, and thousands of young people marching in cities around the world... One week after its inauguration, on October 31 in Glasgow, it is time for a first evaluation of the COP26, which has been very talked-about and criticized. Following that, we may ask ourselves if all the decisions discussed and taken will be useful in the long-term, by 2030: date for the achievement of most of the objectives put forward during these first days of the conference.
The countdown is on before November 12, the date on which a final declaration must be signed by the states present at this reunion. The challenges are huge: limiting warming to over one point five Celsius degrees, compared to the pre-industrial era, a goal set by the Paris Agreement in 2015, but also financing the ecological transition of the poorest countries and setting a framework to drastically reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
The first week of the COP26 climate conference saw talks of countries agreeing to do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, even if it is difficult at this stage to assess their impact on future warming and would not be sufficient according to the UN. A hundred countries are committed to helping to end deforestation by 2030.
These states, including China, represent 85% of the world's forests, which are currently declining at the "alarming rate" of more than 25 stadiums every minute, according to the British presidency of the COP26. This new plan should put an end to industrial-scale logging in less than 10 years, a goal that is too far off for Greenpeace, which sees it as a freeway for "another decade of deforestation".
It is also more than a hundred nations, representing more than 40% of global methane emissions, which have committed to drastically reduce emissions of this powerful greenhouse gas by at least 30% by 2030 compared to 2020. While the European Union and the United States are among them, major polluters such as China, Russia, and India are missing from the list. No sign of involvement is shown yet. Less known than CO2, methane is the second greenhouse gas linked to human activity, mainly from fossil fuels and waste. Most importantly, although it remains in the atmosphere for a shorter time, its warming effect is much greater than that of carbon dioxide, up to more than eighty times.
The latest measure adopted: on Wednesday, twenty countries and five public banks pledged to stop financing fossil fuel projects abroad by the end of 2022, and instead support the transition to clean energy. France is not, however, among the signatories: they remain on their objectives, taken in April 2021 alongside seven European countries, to stop supporting oil in 2025, and gas by 2035 at the latest. Absent from several commitments, India has set, for its part, the goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2070, announced Monday by the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. The country of more than 1.3 billion people is now the world's fourth-largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Brazil, on the other hand, has pledged to achieve the same goal by 2050.
However, the actions undertaken after the first week have not been considered being sufficient, and COP26 is already very controversial, especially among youngsters, like Greta Thunberg, considering the COP as a failure. Indeed, accusing the world's leaders of making empty promises, thousands of young people took to the streets of Glasgow on Friday to push governments to act at the end of the first week of the conference. A movement inspired by the young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. The private jet journeys of many leaders to Glasgow have also been the subject of severe criticism, especially since fewer polluting means of transport have been presented at the COP26.
In my opinion, the COP26 is not being efficient enough to tackle the emergency of the issues we are facing today, while agreements expressed and signed at the COP21 in Paris have still not been fulfilled, I believe the concerned states are beyond late on their engagements and actions need to be taken in consequence. We can even ask ourselves if the concept of organizing a COP every year is still relevant, considering the emergency of global warming. Reunions like these must be held more often, and with more follow-ups with relevant countries and how well their objectives are treated.
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