COP26 Climate Conference

WHY IN THE NEWS?

The COP 26 United Nations Climate Change Conference will be hosted by the UK from 31^st October to 12^th November.

• Earlier, 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.
• COP 26 Goals: According to the United Nations Climate Change Framework Convention (UNFCCC), COP26 will work towards four goals:

Net Zero by 2050:              

• To secure Global Net-Zero by Mid-Century and keep 1.5 Degrees within reach.
• Countries are being asked to come forward with ambitious 2030 emissions reductions targets that align with reaching net zero by the middle of the century.
• To deliver on these stretching targets, countries will need to:
  • Accelerate the phase-out of coal
  • Curtail deforestation
  • Speed up the switch to electric vehicles
  • Encourage investment in renewables.
• 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:

• Developed countries must make good on their promise to mobilise at least USD100bn in climate finance per year.

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.

Suggestions for India:

• Update its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
  • (NDCs detail the various efforts taken by each country to reduce the national emissions)
• Sector by sector plans are needed to bring about development.
  • Decarbonisation of the electricity, transport sector and starting to look at carbon per passenger mile is needed.
• Aggressively figure out how to transition the coal sector.

Conference of Parties (COP)

About:

• The Conference of Parties comes under the UNFCCC which was formed in 1994. The UNFCCC was established to work towards “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
  • COP is the apex decision-making authority of UNFCCC.
• 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.

Meetings:

• COP members have been meeting every year since 1995. The UNFCCC has 198 parties including India, China and the USA.
  • Generally it meets in Bonn, the seat of the secretariat, unless a Party offers to host the session.

Presidency:

• The office of the COP President normally rotates among the five United Nations regional groups which are – Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Central and Eastern Europe and Western Europe and Others.
• The President is usually the environment minister of his or her home country. S/he is elected by acclamation immediately after the opening of a COP session.