“We will judge Cop26 on how much rich countries stand in solidarity with vulnerable people,” said Harjeet Singh. “If there is no stream of finance agreed for people now, we will call this Cop a failure.
“We’ve heard a flurry of announcements so far, but most belong in the category of lip service … leaders making statements for headlines, but we all need to get into the details as that’s where the devils are.”
Meanwhile, on Day 4, Twenty countries pledge end to finance for overseas fossil fuel projects and to divert funds to clean energy development. The countries signing on to the initiative include the UK, the US, Denmark, and some developing countries. Costa Rica is a signatory. China and Japan have not agreed to the initiative, which is estimated to raise about $8bn annually for green energy.
In other developments, for the first time pledges on cutting GHGs are sufficient to regulate global temperature rise beneath 2 degrees C.
Alok Sharma, the president of Cop26, said the new commitments represented important progress but that more would have to be done at this Cop to bring the 1.5C goal within reach.
With India’s and other recent national pledges, he said, 90% of global GDP was now covered by net zero pledges, up from only about 30% over a year ago. But the near-term target of halving global emissions by 2030 was still lacking, he said. How to address this gap in ambition was now the key question for the Cop. www.theguardian.com/...
Malte Meinshausen, an associate professor in climate science at Melbourne and a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, called the shift “momentous” and said the emissions as currently set forth had more than a 50% chance of keeping temperature rise below 2 degrees C. Success, he said was contingent on developing countries receiving adequate finance and for all nations to successfully plot out how they would achieve net zero.
Remaining within the “1.5C threshold” requires lowering global emissions by 45% by 2030 based upon 2010 levels. Leaders at COP26 said this goal will not be met in Glasgow.
India’s Pledges Contingent on International Support
India’s headline target, of reaching net zero by 2070, was criticised by some at Cop26 as being lacklustre and less than should be expected from a major country. Developed countries are being asked to meet net zero by 2050 at the latest, and developing countries by 2060. China has set 2060 as its goal but some analysts say the world’s biggest emitter is likely to meet it sooner.
India also pledged an increase in clean energy to 500 gigawatts by 2030 and a reduction in emissions intensity of its economy by 45% by the same date. It reckons its emissions are likely to peak by 2040, but some of its actions are dependent on receiving suitable finance.
“It’s still a huge if, because many of the net zero targets – including the net zero target from India – are conditional on international support,” Meinshausen said. “We need to see that happen.”
“India’s commitment to net zero is a strategic stitching together of its climate ambition and its development priorities,” said Oxford University’s Dr Radhika Khosla. “The 2030 targets, of 500GW of non-fossil fuel capacity and 50% of electricity to be renewable, both require near-term changes in the energy system, which will be key to locking in the pathway for a longer term net zero target. With this raised ambition compared with its 2015 pledge, the demands for greater funding for developing countries has even more heft.
“The rich world must respond to prime minister Modi’s challenge to deliver a strong increase in international climate finance.”
What few have failed to mention is Modi’s “ask” from the rich world: $1t in climate finance for developing countries. (www.ft.com/...)
"India has clearly put the ball in the court of the developed world. This is real climate action," said Arunabha Ghos, chef executive of Delhi’s Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW).
The rich countries have yet to raise $100b in climate finance.
Other COP News
A group of philanthropic foundations and international development banks on Wednesday announced a $10.5 billion fund to help emerging economies with growing energy needs make the switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources.
The group, known as the Global Energy Alliance, aims to draw in more donors in the coming weeks. At the moment, it has pulled in $1.5 billion from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ikea Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund, along with $9 billion from international development banks such as the African Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation.
The announcement, on the sidelines of the United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, comes as the Biden administration is banking on trillions of dollars in private investment to move global energy systems away from coal, oil and gas. www.nytimes.com/...
Cop26 has to be about keeping fossil fuels in the ground. All else is distraction
George Monbiot writes:
In some respects, preventing climate breakdown is highly complicated. But in another, it’s really simple: we need to leave fossil fuels in the ground. All the bluster and grandstanding, the extravagant promises and detailed mechanisms discussed in Glasgow this week amount to nothing if this simple and obvious thing doesn’t happen.
A recent study in the scientific journal Nature suggests that to stand a 50% chance of avoiding more than 1.5C of global heating, we need to retire 89% of proven coal reserves, 58% of oil reserves and 59% of fossil methane (“natural gas”) reserves. If we want better odds than 50-50, we’ll need to leave almost all of them untouched.
-snip-
Every speech and pledge and gesture at Glasgow this week is thistledown, by comparison to the hard facts of new coalmines, oil and gas fields. It’s the mining and drilling that counts: the rest is distraction.
But distraction is big business. The oil corporations have spent many millions of dollars on ads, memes and films to convince us they’ve gone green. But the latest report on this issue by the International Energy Agency reveals that in 2020 “clean energy investments by the oil and gas industry accounted for only around 1% of total capital expenditure”.
Bill McKibben from Glasgow
Glasgow: where climate wreckage began
I spent part of the morning wandering the gorgeous Victorian courtyards of the University of Glasgow (they would seem familiar to you—it’s where they shot the exteriors for the Harry Potter films), trying to find the university chapel where I was supposed to give a lecture. Instead of that august sanctuary, I stumbled across the James Watt building—and with it a poignant set of reminders about just how quickly we’ve managed to bring the world to the edge of ruin.
The writers in Climate Brief work to keep the Daily Kos community informed and engaged with breaking news about the climate crisis around the world while providing inspiring stories of environmental heroes, opportunities for direct engagement, and perspectives on the intersection of climate activism with spirituality, politics, and the arts.