The mood in Glasgow was optimistic on Tuesday (2), with world leaders wrapping up their high-level summit at the COP26 climate conference. Several important announcements illuminated the meeting’s prospect of achieving significant results.
Here is a summary of what happened on this second day.
The big promise against methane
About 100 nations have signed a global pledge to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is an extremely potent greenhouse gas. Invisible and odorless, it has 80 times more short-term heating power than carbon dioxide.
Von der Leyen said cutting methane emissions “will immediately slow down climate change.”
Helen Mountford, vice president for climate and economics at the Global Resources Institute, an environmental research organization, said the plan is essential to keeping the planet from warming beyond 1.5ºC, a key threshold identified by scientists.
“This pledge sets out a strong ambition that we need globally,” Mountford said in a statement. “Strong and swift action to reduce methane emissions offers a range of benefits, from limiting short-term warming and reducing air pollution to improving food safety and better public health.”
US President Joe Biden said the effort is both an economic and an environmental opportunity. “This is not just something to protect the environment, our future,” he declared. “It’s a huge opportunity for all of us, all nations, to create jobs and make climate goals an essential part of our global economic recovery.”
Chinese commitment
China’s Special Envoy for Climate Change, Xie Zhenhua, said his country “is not holding up” to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
China has been reluctant to commit itself strictly to value and has preferred to say that it will commit to keeping warming “below 2 degrees and as close as possible to 1.5 degrees.”
But Xie looked close to commitment. “I can’t resist the 1.5 degree target. This is part of the goals of the Paris Agreement, in fact. Talking about global climate goals needs to be based on rules. We’re certainly not against it,” he said.
China is the world’s biggest polluter, so its support is vital. Xie is China’s top climate negotiator and as such is arguably one of the most powerful people who attended the summit. He criticized the West for “not fulfilling” its commitment to providing annual climate finance to developing countries.
“I recently spoke with COP26’s top president, Alok Sharma, and (US climate envoy) John Kerry and ministers from many other countries. And they told me that we need to wait until 2022 or even 2023 to reach that goal, which was set for before 2020”, he declared.
Meanwhile, speaking to Christiane Amanpour from CNN, Kerry said the US is working with China “without challenging them personally”. “China has said it will limit its use of coal,” Kerry said. “What we are trying to do is work with China cooperatively to accelerate the transition.”
Helping South Africa against coal
The US, UK, France, Germany and the European Union have announced they will help finance South Africa’s transition away from coal.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the initial partnership would help the African country “decarbonise” its coal-intensive energy system. Financing details have yet to be announced and diplomats hope to be settled in the coming months.
Scientists and some diplomats say the deal could pave the way for similar deals with other developing countries that are highly polluting — a critical step towards curbing global warming and averting a total climate catastrophe.
Vulnerable countries ask for help
The second day of the leaders’ summit had several emotional speeches from leaders of African countries and small islands.
The Climate Vulnerability Forum (CVF), a group that brings together the 48 countries most at risk from climate change, convened a meeting calling on the rich world to help them transition to green economies and deal with the impacts of rising temperatures.
The ambassador of the FVC and former president of the Maldives, Mohamed Nasheed, called for the union of large and small countries and that they “do not give up”.
“It is extremely naive for leaders to say they will save people’s fossil fuel jobs,” he said. “Everyone is now vulnerable, not just us little islands.”
The group’s leaders echoed similar ideas: while their countries are among the least polluting in the world, they are at the forefront of the climate crisis.
“The IPCC shows that Africa is warming faster than any continent in the world, although we are the least emitters,” Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo told the forum, referring to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . “That’s why we support Grupo África and CVF in calling on developed countries to lead in mitigating emissions.”
Kerry also attended the meeting. While acknowledging the difficulties vulnerable countries face, he also called for them to act on the climate and reduce their own emissions.
“I will be very direct with you. Your complaint about what brought us here is legitimate. The future will be defined by what we choose to do,” Kerry said. “If we are going to be responsible for ourselves in the world, we have to reduce emissions and be responsible for doing enough to take care of the damage and help other countries.”
New Deforestation Details
The great promise of ending deforestation by 2030, announced by more than 100 countries on Monday (1), began to take on clearer form as several governments announced concrete commitments.
The European Union has pledged billions to help protect the world’s forests over the next five years, a quarter of which will be earmarked for the Congo Basin pledge, a fund created to protect the world’s second largest tropical forest against the threats of logging and industrial mining.
The UK said it would commit more than R$10 billion over five years to support the pledge, including aid for tropical forests in Indonesia and the Amazon. And Biden has pledged more than R$50 billion on behalf of the United States.
“This plan is the first of its kind, taking a whole government approach and working with Congress to deploy US funding through 2030 to conserve and restore our forests and mobilize billions more from our partners,” he said.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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