Planet’s fate is on the line in Glasgow

GLASGOW: International COP26 local weather negotiations are the “final, greatest hope” to maintain the purpose of limiting international warming to 1.5 C alive, mentioned summit president Alok Sharma as he opened the assembly on Sunday.

The Glasgow gathering, which runs till Nov. 12, comes as an accelerating onslaught of maximum climate occasions the world over underscores the devastating impacts of local weather change from 150 years of burning fossil fuels.
“We all know that our shared planet is altering for the more serious,” Sharma mentioned on the opening ceremony, as protesters gathered within the Scottish metropolis to pile stress on governments.
Consultants warn that solely transformative motion within the subsequent 10 years will assist stave off way more cataclysmic impacts. And the warming of the planet didn’t pause for the COVID-19 pandemic, which prompted the UN assembly to be delayed by a yr.
The final yr alone has seen a once-in-a-thousand-years heatwave and scorching wildfires in North America, excessive rainfall and flooding in Asia, Africa, the US and Europe and extreme drought in Madagascar, which Sharma mentioned has been known as the “first climate-induced famine.”
UN local weather chief Patricia Espinosa instructed the gathering that the world should ship on large-scale reductions of emissions to restrict international warming to 1.5 C, or  “settle for that humanity faces a bleak future on this planet.”
Her feedback got here because the World Meteorological Group revealed its 2021 report on the State of the International Local weather through which it warned “excessive occasions,” comparable to Hurricane Ida within the US and the Algeria wildfires which killed 90 individuals this yr, “are the brand new norm.”

We all know that our shared planet is altering for the more serious.

Alok Sharma, COP26, president

The report, which incorporates information on temperature, CO2 emissions, rain fall, and sea ranges, proper as much as the tip of September 2021, mentioned international warming ranges will improve by the tip of this century far in extra of the Paris Settlement targets of 1.5 to 2 levels except motion is taken at COP26.
In August a bombshell “code purple” report from the world’s prime local weather science physique warned that Earth’s common temperature will hit the 1.5 C threshold round 2030, a decade sooner than projected solely three years in the past. And final week a UN report mentioned even the newest, most bold carbon-cutting commitments would nonetheless result in “catastrophic” warming of two.7C.
A lot of the world’s hopes for wrestling down emissions relaxation on the G20 richer nations — whose leaders met in Rome on the weekend and whose economies account for about 80 % of carbon air pollution. They dedicated to the important thing purpose of limiting international warming to 1.5 C and pledged to deliver a halt to worldwide funding for coal vegetation with out emissions seize services.
In addition they pledged to succeed in a goal of web zero carbon emissions “by or round mid-century,” falling in need of setting a transparent 2050 date, as campaigners and summit host Italy have been hoping for.
Greater than 120 heads of state and authorities will make the journey to Glasgow for the UN assembly, together with US President Joe Biden, France’s Emmanuel Macron, India’s Narendra Modi and Australia’s Scott Morrison.
However President Xi Jinping of China  has not left his nation in the course of the pandemic and won’t be touring to Glasgow. Vladimir Putin of Russia may even be a no-show.
Sharma mentioned greater than 21,000 representatives from governments have been registered, in addition to almost 14,000 observers and 4,000 media representatives.
With poorer nations least accountable for greenhouse fuel emissions hit hardest by its impacts, inequality overshadows the COP26 negotiations.
The failure of wealthy international locations to cough up $100 billion a yr beginning in 2020 to assist creating nations decrease emissions and adapt — a pledge first made in 2009 — will complicate the already fraught talks.