“Red Alert to Humanity”. Faced with fears of a shipwreck at the COP26 climate summit, which begins next Sunday (31) in Glasgow, calls are increasingly intense for world rulers to adopt stronger and faster measures to curb global warming , which already faces catastrophes in series.
Siberia and California burned to the ground, devastating floods in Germany and Belgium, an impressive heat wave in Canada. The temperature on Earth has increased by +1.1 °C since the pre-industrial era and human beings are experiencing the dramatic consequences of the climate change they have caused in recent decades.
And this is just the beginning, warn the scientists, who point out that each additional fraction of a degree will trigger a new series of disasters.
As a UN video of a dinosaur entering the General Assembly area summarizes: “At least we had an asteroid, what’s your excuse? Don’t choose extinction, save your species before it’s too late.”
Given the apocalyptic future predicted by the United Nations’ IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the solution is clear: reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45% by 2030 with the objective of limiting warming to +1.5 °C , the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement, and to continue along this path until reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
But according to a recent UN report, even with the new commitments of the States for 2030, the planet is heading towards a catastrophic warming of +2.7 °C.
“Craziness”
“The madness is always doing the same thing and expecting a different result”, joked Myles Allen, from the British University of Oxford, paraphrasing Einstein, noting that at the current rate the results announced for 2030 would only be achieved “in the 2080s”.
Governments “are not up to the task,” UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, pointing to the G20, which represents 75% of the world’s pollutant emissions, and is holding a weekend meeting in Rome.
“It is absolutely essential that all G20 countries submit contributions compatible with +1.5 °C before Glasgow or in Glasgow,” said Guterres, who said he was “deeply concerned” with the upcoming COP26.
The same is repeated by the British organizers of the meeting. “I’m worried that this could end badly,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared on Monday, but without giving up hope.
China, the world’s biggest pollutant, has not announced formal commitments so far.
But even countries that have already announced their goals can and should reinforce commitments to give a political boost to the two-week conference in Glasgow, Scotland, experts emphasize.
In Glasgow, where more than 120 governors are expected to meet on Monday and Tuesday, US Presidents Joe Biden and French Emmanuel Macron will be present, as well as Indian Prime Ministers Narendra Modi, Australian Scott Morrisson and Canadian Justin Trudeau.
But not Russian President Vladimir Putin or Queen Elizabeth II, who withdrew from the meeting on medical advice after hospitalization.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has not left his country since the beginning of the Covid-19 epidemic, is still expected at COP26 by the meeting’s chairman, British Alok Sharma.
To put pressure on the leaders, the Extinction Rebellion group and other organizations must take action during the COP, in Scotland and elsewhere.
Young Swedish activist Greta Thunberg called for a demonstration in Glasgow on 5 November, a march for “climate justice”.
“Matter of survival”
The issue of justice is central to the world climate conference, postponed for a year due to the pandemic, and in which civil society organizations denounce the inequalities of access linked to Covid-19.
Among the explosive themes linked to the notion of justice is the solidarity between the countries of the Northern hemisphere, responsible for global warming, and the countries of the South, at the forefront of the impacts of climate change, and also of the coronavirus.
And more specifically to promises still unfulfilled by developed countries to increase in 2020 to 100 billion dollars a year to help poor nations to adapt to the consequences and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The report presented this week by the COP26 presidency, which states that the $100 billion target can be reached by 2023 and then surpassed each year, has not calmed down the most vulnerable countries.
“It’s a terrible blow to the developing world,” denounced Walton Webson, who chairs the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). For these islands, threatened by rising sea levels, financial aid is a “survival issue,” Webson insists.
Other important themes in the two weeks of discussions will be the abandonment of fossil energies, starting with coal, the necessary acceleration of adaptation to the impacts of warming and the negotiations to finally implement the Paris Agreement, in particular the functioning of the carbon markets.
“COP26 is the perfect opportunity for countries to show that they have learned from recent climate catastrophes”, summarizes Anaid Velasco, member of the Climate Action Network, which brings together hundreds of NGOs.
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