UPSC Articles
COP26
Part of: Prelims and GS III – Climate change
Context Leaders at the COP26 global climate conference in Glasgow have pledged to stop deforestation by the end of the decade and slash emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane to help slow climate change.
- Fossil fuels: They have been unable to agree more broadly on rapid reductions in the use of fossil fuels which has upset the poorer, smaller countries likely to suffer its worst effects.
- Methane emission: Nearly 90 countries have joined a U.S.-EU-led effort to slash emissions of methane 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels.
- Deforestation and land degradation: Over 100 national leaders pledged to halt and reverse deforestation and land degradation by the end of the decade, underpinned by $19 billion in public and private funds to invest in protecting and restoring forests.
- Hike in climate finance
- At the Ministerial meeting of Like-Minded Developing Countries (LMDC), India said that climate finance cannot continue at the levels decided in 2009
- It emphasised that it should be at least $1 trillion to meet the goals of addressing climate change.
What is COP26?
- The Conference of Parties (COP) comes under the United Nations Climate Change Framework Convention (UNFCCC) which was formed in 1994.
- 2021 marks the 26th Conference of Parties (thus the name COP26) and will be held in the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow.
- 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
- One of the most important conferences, COP21 took place in 2015, at 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.’
News source: TH
