“From midnight to one”, the world is facing a climate emergency in COP26

Great Expectations Equal to Earth’s Climate Disasters: In the wake of the G20 summit’s “shattered hopes”, more than 120 world leaders are meeting in Glasgow on Monday, urging more and more people from all sides to avoid the worst.

“Mankind has played a long time in the climate. It is one minute past midnight and we must act now,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the host of this important COP26, was quoted as saying in excerpts from his speech broadcast by his services.

Observers hoped that this weekend’s meeting of G20 leaders in Rome, which accounts for nearly 80% of global greenhouse gas emissions, would provide strong impetus to the Scottish COP, which has been postponed for a year due to Govt-19.

The G20 has reaffirmed its goal of controlling global warming to + 1.5 ° C from pre-industrial times – the most ambitious ceiling of the Paris Agreement – by the middle of the century and the ambition for neutral carbon at the end of subsidies. Coal burning power plants abroad. But this did not convince the NGOs, the UN or the British Prime Minister.

“Even if they are not buried – I leave Rome with disappointing hope,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sunday.

“We have made progress on the G20 (…), but that’s not enough,” Boris Johnson said before warning: “If Glasgow fails, it will fail.”

The two-week conference has a large number of participants, each in the context of a more severe and erupting global epidemic than the next, which has already weakened poor countries vulnerable to the effects of climate change.

– India expects –

First, ambition. The current pledges of the 200 or so signatories to the Paris Agreement – if they are respected – could lead to a “catastrophic” 2.7 ° C warming, according to the UN.

“We hope to see new pledges at the summit (Monday and Tuesday) that will help boost confidence and optimism that we can control global warming to + 1.5 ° C,” COP26 chairman Alok Sharma said on Sunday.

“The so-called leaders need to do better. They have another chance, ”Namrata Chaudhary of NGO 350.org stressed in COP26.

While China has formally submitted its new climate promises, another key supplier, India, is now at the center of expectations, while resuming without strengthening the promises made by President Xi Jinping.

Alton Meyer, a think tank for E3G, said that if Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the announcements during his speech on Monday afternoon, it could “put more pressure on China and others”.

Another exciting topic is the promise of rich countries to increase their climate aid to developing countries to $ 100 billion a year by 2020.

In order to strengthen the confidence crisis between the North, which is responsible for global warming, and the South, which has been affected by its effects, the goal has been put into practice for three years until 2023.

– “Indifference” –

“Climate finance is not a charity, it’s a question of justice,” Lea Nicholson underlined on Sunday on behalf of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), denouncing the refusal of large economies to leave coal.

He added that the forecasts of the UN Climate Experts (IPCC) estimating that the + 1.5 ° C range would reach ten years earlier than expected in 2030 were “terrifying”. It received about 1.1 C in the world of “those still at the forefront of this crisis who are already experiencing horrific and terrible consequences”.

“After all, some people are not afraid, or worse, they seem to be indifferent,” the negotiator stressed.

Words to be echoed Monday and Tuesday in the speeches of government and heads of state in Africa or the Pacific.

If the Chinese and Russian presidents are not expected in Glasgow, dozens of people, including all EU leaders, from US Joe Biden to Australian Scott Morrison, are expected to march on stage. .

Their words and deeds will be meticulously scrutinized, especially by young activists who have traveled to Glasgow in spite of the barriers associated with the epidemic.

“As citizens of this planet, we invite you to face the climate emergency,” many of them appealed in an open letter, including the Swedish Greta Tanberg, who arrived Sunday by train to Scotland. “Not next year. Not next month. Now “.