Next week is of course, COP 26, the 26th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Seen by many as the make-or-break COP negotiation, delegates from around the world (including myself) will make the journey to Glasgow from the 1st to the 12th November. Everyone hopes that global consensus can be reached climate mitigation and adaptation measures, aimed at achieving the Paris Agreement goal of:
“Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2ºC above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels” (Article 2.1)
The conference is set against a year of unprecedented climatic events, undoubtedly contributed to by the climate emergency. The words of the UN Secretary General must be ringing in most people’s ears: “this is Code Red for Humanity”. His words followed the publication of the latest IPPC Climate Report, which made for frightening reading:
“The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse‑gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible. The internationally agreed threshold of 1.5°C is perilously close. We are at imminent risk of hitting 1.5°C in the near term. The only way to prevent exceeding this threshold is by urgently stepping up our efforts and pursuing the most ambitious path.”
All nations, especially the G20 and other major emitters, need to join the net-zero emissions coalition and reinforce their commitments with credible, concrete and enhanced nationally determined contributions and policies before COP26 in Glasgow.
We need immediate action on energy. Without deep carbon pollution cuts now, the 1.5°C goal will fall quickly out of reach. This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels, before they destroy our planet. There must be no new coal plants built after 2021.”
The road to Glasgow
The Paris Agreement was reached in 2015 at COP 21. It set out that each Party to the agreement must set out its “Nationally Determined Contribution” (NDC) every five years, to reach that 1.5°C goal. Countries are asked to come to COP 26 with ambitious 2030 emissions reductions targets that align with reaching net zero by the middle of the century and keeping that 1.5°C target alive.
But targets aren’t enough. In addition, the Parties need to agree mitigation measures to:
protect and restore ecosystems
build defences, warning systems and resilient infrastructure and agriculture to avoid loss of homes, livelihoods and lives.
And, in order to achieve these goals, developed countries are being asked to make good on their Paris promises to mobilise at least $100bn in climate finance per year from 2020.
So how are things looking less than a week before the conference?
Emissions reduction targets
Unfortunately, current commitments are looking poor, before even examining whether Governments are backing up their commitments with concrete policies, let alone action. This following graph from the BBC is stark:
In fact, the UN’s final report on NDCs published in September, shows that current contributions would result in an emissions increase of 16% by 2030 as against 2010 levels. To be consistent with global emission pathways to the 1.5 °C goal, emissions need to decrease by about 45% from 2010 levels by 2030.
Also making pretty depressing reading is the 2021 Production Gap Report, published by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The report found that despite increased climate ambitions and net-zero commitments, governments around the world still plan to produce or permit more than double the amount of fossil fuels in 2030 than would be consistent with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. In fact, the world’s governments plan to produce around 110% more.
A lot of work needs to be done at COP 26!
Finance
The picture on finance is slightly better, but still not where we need to be. Finance for mitigation and adaptation to climate change has fallen short of the 2020 target. Figures for 2020 are not yet in, but a report last year for the UN concluded that “the only realistic scenarios” showed the $100-billion target was out of reach. Worse still, current estimates are that financing should actually be in the region of $300bn per annum as the costs of developing countries coping with the climate emergency rises.
Ref 2: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Climate Finance Provided and Mobilised by Developed Countries: Aggregate Trends Updated with 2019 Data (OECD, 2021).
Putting the commitments in context, the missed global commitment of $100bn is less than the UK is spending on its HS2 Rail Link and, sadly, the $11.6bn pledged by the UK is in fact taken from our overseas aid budget.
So where is the UK Government with its plans?
The UK Government has set out its stall with the Net Zero Strategy, published last week. The Climate Change Committee welcomed the strategy, stating that it is a major step forward. Lord Debden commented: “the UK was the first major industrialised nation to set Net Zero into law – now we have policy plans to get us there. As we welcome world leaders to COP26 in Glasgow, that is an important statement… now [the Government] must deliver these goals and fill in the remaining gaps in funding and implementation.”
According to the Climate Change Committee, the strategy’s ambitions align to the UK’s emissions targets of Net Zero by 2050 and a 78% reduction from 1990 to 2035 (63% relative to 2019).
However, ambition is one thing and the Strategy has been less well received by others, highlighting the lack of financial commitments, placing too much faith in private sector solutions and a nuclear revolution.
Others have summarised the content of the strategy so I won’t do that here (take a look at some of the legal summaries published by Lexology for some detail and commentary here and here and for a more detailed analysis, Carbon Brief’s report here). However, I will flag a couple of key points that stood out for me.
The first was Boris Johnston’s comments on no need for “hair shirts” and continuing our lifestyles “guilt-free”. Although reduction in consumption is an unpopular idea across politicians and consumers alike, if we are to get real about the climate emergency and our ecological emergency, reducing the amount of natural resources we consume has to be part of the picture. Instead, we have seen a focus on the next new shiny investment opportunities (new nuclear anyone?) and an implicit belief that nature will not limit growth.
Of course, the more realistic view requires tackling the rather unsexy areas that were starkly missing from the Net Zero strategy such as:
mass insultation of homes (what is replacing the failed Green Homes Grant?);
a carbon tax, including a substantial aviation fuel tax (rather than the Budget announcement of the removal of air passenger duty on some internal flights);
substantial support for energy efficiency, including efficient use of waste heat;
a tax on carbon intensive food;
regenerative agriculture;
phase out and banning of single use/ non-recyclable products;
and the biggest elephant in the room, no new coal, oil or gas exploitation and the very quick phase out of the use of such fuels.
For my part, I will be travelling by train from Germany across to the COP negotiations and will continue to drive down my own personal CO2 contributions as much as possible.
I will also be hoping, possibly over optimistically, that negotiators will pull some magic out of the bag and we get commitments at COP 26 that are meaningful and aligned with a future that isn’t as bleak as current predictions are forecasting.
