COP26 is the 2021 United Nations climate change conference. In November, the UK, together with our partner Italy, will host an event many believe to be the world’s "best last chance" to get runaway climate change under control. The conference is a pivotal moment in the fight against climate change.
For nearly three decades the UN has been bringing together almost every country on earth for global climate summits called COPs which stands for ‘Conference of the Parties’. In that time climate change has gone from being a fringe issue to a global priority. This year will be the 26th annual summit, giving it the name COP26.
With the UK as President, COP26 takes place in Glasgow where more than 190 world leaders will arrive. Joining them will be tens of thousands of negotiators, government representatives, businesses and citizens for twelve days of talks working to reach agreements on how to tackle climate change.
To understand the importance of this summit, we have to look back to COP21 which took place in Paris in 2015 where, for the first time ever, every country agreed to work together to limit global warming to below 2 degrees and aim for 1.5 degrees. The Paris Agreement pledges to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and to make money available to deliver on these aims.
Under the Paris Agreement, countries committed to bring forward national plans setting out how much they would reduce their emissions – known as Nationally Determined Contributions, or NDCs. They agreed that every five years they would come back with an updated plan that would reflect their highest possible ambition at that time.
COP26 in Glasgow is the moment for countries to update their plans for reducing emissions. The commitments laid out in Paris did not come close to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees and the window for achieving this is closing which makes this conference pivotal in the race to achieve net zero emissions.
Climate change is real and it is here now. People are responsible for it and, if we do nothing, things will get much worse for us all.
As the world gets hotter, many people have already had their lives overturned by climate change through flood, fire, drought, pollution and crop failure. These will become more severe and disrupt life as we know it all over the world.
It is not too late: we have a choice to leave a safer world for our children. As momentous as Paris was, countries must go much further in order to keep the hope of holding temperature rises to 1.5 degrees alive. COP26 needs to be decisive: the decade to 2030 will be crucial.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed; to not know where to begin or what changes really make a difference. As well as raising our voices to support change at a governmental level, throughout this issue we offer examples of small steps you can take to cut down your carbon footprint, to garden more sustainably, to use water more wisely, to reuse and repurpose, to prevent food waste, to make your own compost and to welcome wildlife to your plot to increase biodiversity.
Our #ScotlandGrowsChallenge at the end of this issue offers further practical steps you could choose to do now to step up to the challenges ahead and play your part.
“I’m not certain how much the natural world will have changed but I am certain that my children or grandchildren will ask me, who did this?”
Kenyan climate activist, Elizabeth Wathuti’s letter to world leaders
Information adapted from ukcop26.org