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0 We had the opportunity to chat with Luca Brusa, the Lead, stakeholder, and regional support at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Luca talked about what is to come in the future, especially with COP 26 right around the corner.
What is COP 26
Cop 26 is the 26th annual Conference of the Parties. With the UK president spearheading the conference, the event will be held in Glasgow.
COP 26 will be held on Nov 1, 2021, and end on Nov 12, 2021. A notable previous COP was COP21, held in Paris in 2015, which resulted in the Paris Agreement, where every country agreed to work together to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees. The Paris Agreement’s efforts to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees were reasonable as a starting point, but the window is closing fast, and countries need to do much more to keep temperature rises to 1.5 degrees. COP 26 will be important moving into the next decade to build upon what was laid out in the Paris Agreement. We will build on the new science and technology available and adapt.
Luca Brusa talked about how COP 26 is a credibility test for our fight against the climate emergency. “we need to start the decision making through mandates to move on with keeping the Paris Agreement.”
Current Climate-Related Struggles :
National Determined Contributions or NDCs embody efforts made by each country to reduce their national emissions and adapt to climate change impacts. According to the Paris Agreement, each party (country in agreement) is to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs that it intends to achieve. Submissions from each party are due every five years. NDCs were due in 2020; however, many countries have not submitted theirs. Regardless of submitted NDCs, a review of NDCs and a synthesis report (https://unfccc.int/documents/306848) were produced for the year 2020. The report had a bad outcome due to many countries not submitting their NDCs
It is acknowledged that circumstances may have hindered NDC completion, especially for those developing countries with limited resources and the inability for experts to travel and help complete NDC reports.
However, with COP 26 fast approaching, countries must create NDC reports to see our global capacity to respond to climate change.
One other big issue to date which Luca mentioned regarding progress in following the Paris Agreement was following Article 53.
Article 53 of the Paris agreement states that developed countries will contribute $100 billion per year to developing countries. However, we are nowhere near that target, and this, along with other minor shortcomings when following the Paris Agreement, accumulate and continue to hinder the fight against climate change.
“Time is running out, but we believe that unleashing the full potential will not only target climate change but help the world move forward from Covid-19… Covid-19 has had a huge impact on the economy globally. However, we believe that this is our chance to push through a greener economy, and this is a huge opportunity”.
One major challenge with tackling climate change is that global expectations and political commitment are very far apart. We need to close the gap, and when we talk about emissions, we need to talk about mitigation and adaptation, resilience, and mobilizing finances.
“I have been in this process for a very long time. When we look back, there are many reasons why things were successful; we should leave no voice of solution behind. We really need to understand the needs of the civil society and the private sector and make it part of the solution. Everyone has a role to play, and everyone must be involved”.
“The best day to take action against climate change is yesterday; the second-best day is today.”
You can listen to Luca Brusa chat about what is to come in the future, especially with COP 26, watch the webinar below.
You can check out recordings of our other sustainability webinars at https://www.environfocus.com/environfocusknowledge/webinar-series-recordings/ or click HERE.
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