Cop26 climate deal will be harder than Paris
accord, admits Sharma
Summit president says 2015 global emissions agreement
a ‘framework’ but rules were left for future talks
The president-designate of Cop26, Alok Sharma, said
the talks’ key task will be getting countries to commit to keeping the goal of
limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
Fiona
Harvey Environment correspondent
Sat 23 Oct
2021 07.00 BST
Achieving a
global climate deal in Glasgow in the next three weeks will be harder than
signing the Paris agreement of 2015, the UK president-designate of the Cop26
talks has said.
Alok
Sharma, the cabinet minister in charge of the UK-hosted talks, just over a week
away, said the task would be to get nearly 200 countries to implement stringent
cuts to their greenhouse gas emissions, in line with holding global temperature
increases to within 1.5C of pre-industrial levels – a goal fast receding as
global carbon output continues to climb.
“What we’re
trying to do here in Glasgow is actually really tough,” he said. “It was
brilliant what they did in Paris, it was a framework agreement, [but] a lot of
the detailed rules were left for the future.
“It’s like,
we’ve got to the end of the exam paper and the most difficult questions are
left and you’re running out of time, the exam’s over in half an hour and you
go, ‘How are we going to answer this one?’”
Preparations
for Cop26, which opens on Sunday 31 October after being postponed by a year,
have been hampered by the Covid-19 pandemic. More than 120 world leaders and at
least 25,000 delegates and are expected to attend, vaccines, testing and
quarantine arrangements for which will be a big logistical challenge.
“This is
definitely harder than Paris on lots of levels,” said Sharma, who took charge
of the summit in February 2020, weeks before the first lockdown. “[But] what we
have going for us is that there is an understanding that we need to deal with
this [climate crisis].”
In August,
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of the world’s leading
climate scientists, delivered its starkest warning yet of “irreversible”
climate disaster. “The IPCC report, while it was very alarming, was quite
helpful in helping to focus minds,” said Sharma. “The question is whether or
not countries are willing in Glasgow to go forward and commit to consensus on
keeping 1.5C alive – that’s where the challenge will be.”
Under the
Paris agreement, 197 nations agreed to limit global heating to “well below” 2C
above pre-industrial levels and to “pursue efforts” to remain within 1.5C. But
the commitments they came up with, called nationally determined contributions
(NDCs), were inadequate, and would lead to a catastrophic 3C rise, while new
scientific advice has strengthened the case for the lower limit of 1.5C.
The accord
contains a ratchet mechanism requiring governments to return to the negotiating
table every five years with more ambitious plans, a timetable stretched to this
year by the Covid-19 postponement of Cop26.
Prospects
for the talks were boosted this week as the UK government produced its
long-awaited net zero strategy, aimed at generating $90bn of investment and
440,000 green jobs this decade. While the strategy came under fire from some
environmental campaigners for gaps and insufficient funding, the existence of a
substantial plan was vital for the hosts’ credibility at the talks.
Measuring
all countries’ national climate plans against the 1.5C goal would be a key part
of Cop26, said Sharma. “This is going to be a big ask. What we’re potentially
saying to countries is that if your NDC isn’t good enough, you’re going to have
to come back to the table. This is something we’ve got to try and fix over the
next few years.”
He warned
that the world would judge harshly any country seen to damage the chances of
meeting the 1.5C goal. “What nobody will want at the end of this process is to
have the finger pointed at them to say, ‘You, country A, B, C or D, are the
ones who ultimately ensured that Glasgow wasn’t seen as producing a credible
result.’”
But Glasgow
did not represent the last chance of meeting the 1.5C aim, he added. Countries
could still strengthen their commitments in future years. “If there is a gap,
and there may well be a gap between [NDCs] and where you need to be in terms of
1.5C, we need to find a way of how we address that gap.”
Geopolitics
have also changed markedly in the six years since the Paris talks, with
relations between the US and China now at a low ebb. “The stars were perhaps
differently aligned going into Paris,” concedes Sharma.
Sharma said
he was still awaiting an NDC from China, the world’s biggest emitter. “They
signed up to the communique in July that we negotiated in Naples, that all the
G20 would come up with enhanced NDCs before COP – I reminded them they needed
to deliver on that.”
There have
been questions over China’s commitment to climate action, as the government
signalled it could increase coal production in response to high energy prices.
Chinese
experts downplayed these fears, pointing to the country’s increases in
renewable energy generation, but doubts remain over whether China will stick to
a relatively unambitious goal of causing emissions to peak by 2030, which
scientists fear would be too late to allow the world to stick to 1.5C.
China’s
president, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are almost certain to miss
the talks, though Joe Biden of the US will be there “with bells on”. The UK and
the UN have downplayed the significance of the absences, as the countries will
still field high-level negotiating teams.
As Cop
president, the UK must act as a broker and referee at the talks rather than a
leading player. But while remaining neutral, Sharma will insist on the voice of
smaller countries being heard. “I see myself as a champion of developing
countries and the climate-vulnerable [countries]. Some of them will be under
water at 1.5C,” he said.
“All of
these people are pretty adamant that what has to emerge from Glasgow is for us
to be able to say we’ve kept 1.5 alive.”
In the long
term, the direction of travel for the world is clear, he added. “If someone
says to me, ‘Do you think we will ever get to the point where we have a net
zero global economy?’, my answer is ‘Yes, I’m pretty sure we will.’ The issue
is, will it be fast enough to deal with the challenges that we face right now?”
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