When international authorities convene in Scotland to try to speed up efforts to mitigate climate change, more than one world leader warns that the humanity’s destiny, even survival, hangs in the balance. Temperatures, tempers and hyperbole have all risen in the run-up to the United Nations summit.
And failure looms large for all participants at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, often known as COP26, which begins on Sunday and runs until November 12.
In the historic 2015 Paris climate agreement, nearly 200 countries agreed to specific measures to combat global warming. Now, starting Sunday, world leaders will gather in Glasgow for two weeks to take the next step demanded by the pact, that is to do more and do it faster.
However, carbon pollution from the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas is increasing, not decreasing, with the exception of a small reduction due to the pandemic.
According to a United Nations estimate released this week, the globe will emit up to 28 billion metric tonnes (31 billion US tonnes) of greenhouse gases between now and 2030, far above the amount required to maintain the planet at or below the strictest limit established in Paris.
‘If the politicians do not take climate action, everything is on the line,’ Ugandan climate campaigner Vanessa Nakate warned. ‘We are unable to consume coal. We are unable to consume oil or inhale so-called natural gas,’ she added
‘We are battling for humanity’s existence,’ stated Frans Timmermans, the Vice President of the European Commission. He said that the greatest challenges humanity faces were climate change and the looming ecocide.
Heat waves, flooding, drought and more dangerous tropical cyclones are all being exacerbated by climate change. According to risk modelling firm, AIR Worldwide, extreme weather costs the world 320 billion dollars per year in economic damages and people die as a result.
Dr. Maria Neira, the World Health Organization’s director of public health and environment commented that the poor choices that were destroying our world were also killing our people.
According to scientists, humanity and the Earth will not fall off a cliff as a result of global warming. What happens in Glasgow, on the other hand, will either steer the globe away from the worst-case scenarios or send it careening down a dirt road with sharp twists and danger at every turn. It is a circumstance in which even tenths of a degree can increase the risk.
Even after some countries’ latest emission commitments, United Nations’ Secretary General Antonio Guterres stated Friday that the world was still careening towards climate catastrophe. ‘Glasgow faces a major risk of failing to deliver,’ he said.
For months, Unted Nations’ officials have emphasised few objectives that are listed below:
– Countries must commit to a 45 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 compared to 2010.
– Rich countries should provide impoverished countries $100 billion in aid each year.
– Half of that sum must be spent on adapting to the worst effects of climate change.
The targets have been loosened a little by world leaders. The Associated Press quoted that the US Climate Envoy John Kerry as told the media that there would be a gap in the emission objectives.
Every five years, countries must review their prior pledges to reduce carbon emissions and announce plans to decrease even more and quicker, according to the Paris pact. This year’s gathering is the first to feature the obligatory ratcheting up of aspirations, which was delayed a year by the pandemic.
The goal is that world leaders will persuade one another to do more while also guaranteeing that poorer countries struggling to combat climate change receive the financial assistance they require.
The Paris Agreement’s headline goal was to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, but the world has already warmed by 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since then.
Every examination of current governments’ climate-change pledges reveals that they are insufficient to halt warming at that time, and will instead result in at least another degree or a degree and a half of extra warming.
The world will cross the 1.5-degree-Celsius threshold in the 2030s, according to all five emissions scenarios studied in a massive UN scientific assessment released in August, though several researchers told the media that it was still technically possible to stay within that limit or at least temporarily go over it and come back down.
In 2015, small island nations and other impoverished, vulnerable people warned that 2 degrees Celsius would wipe them out, insisting on a 1.5-degree limit.
Tina Stege, the Marshall Islands’ climate envoy, said that their way of life was at jeopardy. Their ability to offer a safe and secure future for their children was under jeopardy. The Marshall Islands were an archipelago republic with no accessible higher terrains, she added.
On Friday, as environmental demonstrators targeted huge banks in London’s financial district, portions of Scotland were hit by exceptionally heavy rainfall, which scientists predict was getting more intense as a result of global warming.
The gap between nationalities is wide in Glasgow, and trust is a concern.
Rich countries such as the United States and European nations produced most of the carbon and greenhouse gases and caused the most of the problems, but today they are requesting impoverished countries to reduce or eliminate their usage of fossil fuels. In exchange, they’ve offered $100 billion each year to assist developing countries in making the transition to clean energy.
Failure of keeping this promise is a major source of mistrust between developed and developing countries, according to Guterres.
Although major rising economies may hold the key to success, China, the world’s top carbon emitter, has presented a new national target that is only slightly greater than its prior goal.
According to Claire Fyson, a senior analyst at Climate Action Tracker, a group of scientists that analyses emission commitments, if every other country pulled back in line with the 45 percent global emission reduction and China does not, the world’s total would drop to only a 30 percent.
The Director of the United Nations Environment Programme Inger Andersen stated that in the end, every country would be urged to do more in Glasgow. However, she claimed that much of the effort was directed toward China and the United States.
Andersen told the media that they needed China and the United States to put everything else aside and demonstrate true leadership regarding the climate change, because that was what would be required for the humanity to survive.
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