COP26: The Big Issues
COP26 will kick off in Glasgow on October 31 and run until November 12, here is everything you need to know about the big issues that will be negotiated.
Introduction to COP
COP stands for Conference of the Parties and is a broad term used in international relations to describe the structured, periodic decision-making meetings of all parties to a multilateral agreement or convention. For climate, COP refers to gatherings of the countries that are part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or the UNFCCC. The Climate COP gathers every single year unless the parties agree otherwise, usually in November and December, and there are also pre-meetings referred to as Subsidiary Bodies or SBs that happen in the lead up.
The primary purpose of a COP is to review and monitor implementation issues, and to negotiate any missing administrative or institutional items but in actuality, COPs also function as a global gathering of the broader climate community. (Youth Climate Action)
Climate COPs have been taking place since 1995. Some key milestones over the years have included negotiation of The Kyoto Protocol which happened in 1997 in Japan and of course reaching the Paris agreement which was an outcome of COP21 in Paris in 2015.
COP26
The next COP - COP26 will take place October 31 to November 12 in Glasgow, Scotland and is arguably the most important conference of the parties since Paris. This is because a number of important implementation issues need to be decided on urgently to support implementation of the Paris agreement.
It has been a challenge making this COP a reality because of the global pandemic. COP26 was originally scheduled to take place in November 2020 but due to the pandemic had to be moved forward a year. There have been many concerns in the climate community that this delay has slowed momentum and provided an excuse for countries’ inaction. In addition, determining the appropriate modalities for this event has been contentious. For a long time it was not clear if the event would take place in person or online and developing countries expressed very valid concerns that their voices would not be heard in an online format. When the decision was made to go ahead with the event in an in-person format, the United Nations and the United Kingdom promised inclusive participation but putting that into practice logistically has proven difficult. A lot is riding on this conference and it remains to be seen if countries will rise to the occasion.
#1 Ambition Mechanism
The Paris Agreement was negotiating with a process for increasing ambition. The emission reduction commitments that countries made in 2015 were not sufficient for keeping climate change below 1.5°C or even 2°C, but it was the best that could be achieved at that moment so the negotiators put in a mechanism that would allow for a 5-year cycle to enhance ambition. The idea being that every 5 years countries would review their commitments and make them stronger. The Paris agreement was adopted in 2015 and therefore, 2020 was meant to be the first year for new, more ambitious commitments. The delay did slow this process but to date, 115 of the 191 parties to the Paris agreement have submitted their new commitments, unfortunately several key players did not increase their ambition in their new submissions notably Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Switzerland and Vietnam. A synthesis report issued in September 2021 found that we could expect greenhouse gas emissions to decrease by 12% in 2030 compared to 2010 under the current commitments, however this is far from what is required to limit global average temperature increases. To keep us at 1.5°C we would need reductions of 45% by 2030 and to keep us at 2°C we would need a 25% reduction by 2030. So again, that’s 12% anticipated and 25% or 45% required - a big gap.
Another interesting dynamic of ambition is conditional commitments. Many developing countries have made commitments that can only be achieved with adequate support from developed countries - this is why climate finance is going to play a big role in COP26 as well.
The BBC recently reported that documents have surfaced showing countries official positions on some of these issues and they are disturbing and troubling and unfortunately not at all surprising. Australia and India are pushing back on calls for the discontinuation of coal use. Saudi Arabia, Japan, China, and Norway have all pushed back against the end of fossil fuels. Brazil and Argentina pushed back against calls for eating less meat. And Switzerland, Australia, and the US are pushing back on calls for more climate financing for developing countries.
But, it’s not all bad, more and more countries continue to make pledges for Net Zero by mid-century. Just this week Saudi Arabia announced net zero by 2060, following Russia who recently announced the same and the UAE announced net zero by 2050. In the blog I have included a link to a full tracker of net zero commitments that show the progress on that front.
#2 Climate Finance
As previously mentioned, another issue to watch closely is climate finance. In 2009, countries set a goal of mobilizing $100B per year to help countries with less means develop in a way that is sustainable and aligns with the Paris agreement. In 2019, countries were $20B short of their goal and there have been calls on those countries to make higher contributions in the future to make up for these shortfalls but as I am sure you can guess this is heavily contested by many nations. Countries are also debating how much money should be given to climate change adaptation vs. mitigating CO2 emissions. These will be a key and difficult points of negotiation during COP26. And it is worth mentioning that climate finance is often seen as proxy for commitment, in other words where countries put their money shows what is important to them. So if a weak outcome is negotiated on finance it can have ripple effects on other issues being discussed.
#3 Article 6
One of the most complex issues to be negotiated at COP26 is Article 6 of the Paris Agreement which relates to finalizing rules around international carbon markets. This particular item has been on the agenda since the Paris agreement was adopted in 2015 and was meant to be resolved in 2019 at COP25 but no agreement was achieved and it remains contentious with different countries having different views on how the big questions should be answered. Three big issues are still outstanding around preventing double-counting of credits, determining how credits earned under Kyoto can be applied to the Paris Agreement, and finding how markets can support adaptation finance. (WRI)
#4 Loss and Damage
Loss and damage is a unique concept in the climate change arena. We often think about adaptation, which is how countries will change their systems and society gradually to cope with rising temperatures but loss and damage is a distinct concept focused on the harm caused by climate change events whether they be disasters or those that occur over time, for example loss of property by a natural disaster or forced migration of people because of loss of livelihoods (Daily Star). In the negotiations, loss and damage discussions will focused on two things - technical assistance and finance. At COP25 in Madrid, negotiators agreed to set up a body that would provide technical and scientific advice to countries, this is referred to as the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage (SNLD). At COP26 more details will be determined around its scope, modalities and operations. However, the big outstanding question around loss and damage is financing, and as I mentioned before finance is always a thorny topic so it is hard to imagine much progress being made on that particular aspect.
#5 Enhanced Transparency Framework
The final issue I want to touch on is a little administrative but important nonetheless. The Enhanced Transparency Framework lays out how countries should report on their climate mitigation, adaptation and support received. It aims to hold countries accountable for their climate commitments and create more transparency overall. Pending decisions include the details of the tables and formats countries will use to track and report. (WRI)
And finally, I spoke with some friends of mine at YOUNGOs which is the youth constituency of the UNFCCC and asked if there are any other issues they are tracking, they noted three interesting further points:
First, the Food System is becoming a more important part of the climate discussion. The Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture was a landmark decision negotiated in June that recognizes the unique potential of agriculture in tackling climate change. YOUNGOs expects to see more issues related to agriculture on the agenda of this and future COPs.
They also noted that the first Global Stocktake is now underway from 2021-2023, this process assesses the world’s collective progress towards achieving the purpose of the agreement and its long-term goals and engages many stakeholder groups in the assessment.
And finally, they noted that ACE, which stands for Action for Climate Empowerment and includes issues of participation, education, training and awareness, is expected to have a new work program adopted at COP26.
Keep Learning
Here are a few great resources for further reading and learning: