COP26 climate conference

October 17, 2021
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN Topics

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COP26 climate conference

Subject – Environment

Context – The UK will host the COP 26 UN Climate Change Conference from October 31 to November 12

Concept –

This year marks the 26th Conference of Parties (thus the name COP26) and will be held in the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow.
The conference comes months after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published its assessment report on Earth’s climate, highlighting heat waves, droughts, extreme rainfall and sea-level rise in the coming decades.

Formation of COP

The Conference of Parties comes under the United Nations Climate Change Framework Convention (UNFCCC) which was formed in 1994. The UNFCCC was established to work towards “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.”
It laid out a list of responsibilities for the member states which included:
- Formulating measures to mitigate climate change
- Cooperating in preparing for adaptation to the impact of climate change
- Promoting education, training and public awareness related to climate change.

COP1 to COP25

COP members have been meeting every year since 1995. The UNFCCC has 198 parties including India, China and the USA.
The first conference (COP1) was held in 1995 in Berlin.
At COP3 held in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, the famous Kyoto Protocol was adopted. It commits the member states to pursue limitation or reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. It entered into force on 16 February 2005 and there are 192 Parties in the Kyoto Protocol.
India hosted the eighth COP from October 23 to November 1, 2002 in New Delhi.
One of the most important conferences, COP21 took place from November 30 to December 11, 2015, in Paris, France. Member countries agreed to work together to ‘limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.’

COP	Place	Year	Major Highlight
COP 1	Berlin	1995	The signatories agree to meet annually to maintain control over global warming and see the need to reduce emissions of polluting gases.
COP 3	Kyoto.	1997	The Kyoto Protocol is adopted with the commitment to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in industrialized countries. Lays the foundation of the carbon market.
COP 8	New Delhi		The conference laid out seven measures including, ‘strengthening of technology transfer… in all relevant sectors, including energy, transport…and the promotion of technological advances through research and development…and the strengthening of institutions for sustainable development.’
COP 13	Bali	2007	The Bali Roadmap sets a timetable for negotiations for a new international agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol and include all countries, not only the developed ones.
COP 15	Copenhagen	2009	The objective of keeping global warming below 2 ºC is validated and developed countries commit to finance developing countries in the long term.
COP16	Cancun	2010	The Cancun Agreements, which formalizes the commitments set out in Copenhagen, are written and the Green Climate Fund is created mainly for climate actions in developing countries.
COP17.	Durban	2011	his time, all countries agree to start reducing emissions, including the US and emerging countries (Brazil, China, India and South Africa). It was decided to negotiate a global agreement that would came into force in 2020.
COP18	Doha	2012	It is decided to extend the Kyoto Protocol until 2020. Countries like the US, China, Russia and Canada did not support the extension.
COP20	Lima	2014	For the first time, all countries agree to develop and share their commitment to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
COP21	Paris	2015	After 20 years of negotiations, the Paris Agreement was unanimously adopted to keep global warming below 2 ºC above pre-industrial and continue efforts to limit it to 1.5 ºC.
COP22	Marrakesh	2016	Against all expectations, the Paris Agreement came into force a few days before the Summit, after being ratified by most nations. The result of the negotiations at this meeting was encapsulated in three documents: the Marrakesh Action Proclamation, a strong political message supporting the Paris Agreement at a time when the change in the White House was generating uncertainty; the Marrakesh Partnership to strengthen climate collaboration for the period up to 2020, and; the first meeting of the CMA, the decision-making body for the Paris Agreement
COP23	Bonn	2017	At this Climate Summit, progress was made on the Rulebook to detail how the Paris Agreement will work in practice (Paris Rulebook), with the aim of concluding it in 2018. Facilitative Dialogues, known as the Talanoa Dialogue, were also created, a process allowing countries to share experiences and good practices in order to achieve the Agreement objectives. The Talanoa Dialogue Platform was launched to promote the participation and dialogue of local and indigenous communities. A Gender Action Plan was adopted to ensure the role of women in decision-making related to climate change.
COP24	Katowice	2018	Little over two months before the Summit began, the IPCC published its report analyzing the impacts of a 1.5°C global temperature increase, which focused debate on a need for greater urgency in reducing polluting emissions. Nevertheless, although this was mentioned, it was not considered to be a guide for action in the texts agreed. Meanwhile, the Talanoa Dialogue ended, the next step being to review the 2020 climate plans to align them with the set objective of limiting global warming. Finally, one of the most important articles of the negotiation was left unresolved: Article 6 permitting the development of carbon markets.
COP25	Madrid	2019

COP26 goals

According to the UNFCCC, COP26 will work towards four goals:

Secure global net-zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach.
- The UK has already committed to bringing 78% emission reductions by 2035 and is on the road to net-zero by 2050.
- India has also taken important steps with its 450 giga Watt renewables target and national hydrogen mission.
- Different countries will have different pathways, and we recognise the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.”
- The UNFCCC recommends that countries ‘accelerate the phase-out of coal, curtail deforestation, speed up the switch to electric vehicles and encourage investment in renewables’ to meet this goal.
- What India could do to reach its targets:
  1. It is time for India to update its Nationally Determined Contributions or NDCs. (NDCs detail the various efforts taken by each country to reduce the national emissions)
  2. Sector by sector plans are needed to bring about development. We need to decarbonise the electricity, transport sector and start looking at carbon per passenger mile.
  3. Aggressively figure out how to transition our coal sector
  4. India also needs to ramp up the legal and institutional framework of climate change.

Adapt to protect communities and natural habitats
- Countries will work together to ‘protect and restore ecosystems and build defences, warning systems and resilient infrastructure and agriculture to avoid loss of homes, livelihoods and even lives.’

Mobilise finance
- “To deliver on our first two goals, developed countries must make good on their promise to mobilise at least $100bn in climate finance per year by 2020,” notes the UNFCCC.

Work together to deliver
- Another important task at the COP26 is to ‘finalise the Paris Rulebook’. Leaders will work together to frame a list of detailed rules that will help fulfil the Paris Agreement.