The 26th Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP26) finally ended late Saturday with delegates agreeing to a new set of principles outlined in the document: Glasgow Climate Pact. Here are some key highlights from the pact (available here: Link):
Science: The parties recognize the climate urgency that the world faces. The recent IPCC report (Link) states the unequivocal impact of human influence which has already caused 1.1 deg. C of warming leading to changes in extremes such as heatwaves, precipitation, droughts.
Adaptation: The pact urges the countries to integrate adaptation into their planning and urges developed countries for significant scale up climate finance, technology transfer and capacity building for adaptation in line with the needs of the developing countries.
Mitigation (Reducing emissions): The parties recognize that to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, the global greenhouse gas emissions must reduce by 45% by 2030 (relative to 2010) and net zero around mid-century. All nations are requested to communicate updated nationally determined contributions (NDC’s) before COP27.
Most importantly, the pact calls upon all parties to scale up deployment of clean power generation as well as accelerating efforts to phase down unabated coal power generation and inefficient fossil fuel subsidies.
Finance: The pact calls upon developed countries to provide support to developing countries through financing, technology transfer and capacity building. The pact urges developed countries to meet the promised USD 100 billion per year support to developing countries and at the same time, requests to make the finance flows consistent with low GHG emission pathways and climate resilient development.
Loss and Damage: Acknowledging the impact of climate change leading to loss and damage in many parts of the world, the pact requests a wide variety of stakeholders including IGO’s, UN, NGO’s etc. to provide enhanced support for activities towards loss and damage and urges developed countries to provide funds to minimize and address loss and damage.
Implementation: The Paris Agreement work program was completed including agreed decisions on common time frames for NDC’s, methodologies related to transparency, and rules and procedures for implementation of Article 6 (carbon markets) of the Paris Agreement.
Collaboration: The pact requests the UN to convene world leaders next year for enhanced ambition and recognizes the important role of international collaboration across all actors for contributing to progress towards the goals of the Paris Agreement. It crucially also recognizes the role of observer organizations including the NGO community in sharing knowledge and calls for ambition.
As an official observer organization to the UNFCCC, WBA was active in its role in advocating for bioenergy technologies and solutions at COP26. Read more here: Link