By Danielle Garcia
December 7, 2021
While COP26 may be a familiar term to some readers, it might not be recognizable to all. Luckily, here at Cumming our Sustainability & Energy Solutions team has many years of experience in all matters related to COP26. So now, a little over two weeks after the Glasgow conference, we’d like to give you our two cents on why this event is so important, what went down, and what you need to know moving forward.
First and foremost, let’s talk about what happens at COP26 and why it’s important. Recognizing the urgency of addressing global climate change, the UN brings together leaders every year from all over the world, to a two-week Conference of the Parties (COP) to discuss climate change issues and solutions. After being delayed a year because of COVID-19, the goals of the 26th conference included:
- Mitigation: Secure a path to achieving global net zero emission reductions by 2030 and keep warming at or below 1.5 degrees Celsius.
- Adaptation: Urgently adapt to protect communities and natural habitats. This goal included discussions around restoring/protecting ecosystems and building defenses to avoid the loss of homes/livelihoods/lives.
- Mobilizing Finance: To deliver on the first two goals, developing countries must make good on their past promise to mobilize at least $100 billion in climate-related financing per year by 2020.
- Collaboration: Work together to accelerate action by finalizing the Paris Rulebook (detailed rules that make the Paris Agreement operational) and promoting collaboration between governments, businesses and civil society.
At the end of the two-week summit in Glasgow, leaders from around the world drafted and finalized the Glasgow Climate Pact. This document represents the first U.N. climate deal to explicitly mention the need to move away from coal power and subsidies for fossil fuels, making it the first such document of its kind. It will hopefully encourage countries to strengthen their near-term climate targets, while also moving away from fossil fuels at a more accelerated rate. While the Pact adds strategies to create measurable impact on the reduction of greenhouse gases, the general narrative following these decisions has been conflicted to say the least. Although the deals that emerged have not been universally accepted, there is optimism that these objectives will continue to move countries forward towards a greener future.
Several other major issues were covered at COP26 and incorporated into the Pact, including discussion of wealthier nations supporting and providing aid to vulnerable nations, successfully (but barely) staying on track to limit warming to 1.5 Celsius above preindustrial levels, leaders from 100 countries committing to stopping deforestation by 2030, BlackRock’s $673 million Climate Finance Partnership, carbon offset agreements, agricultural commodity companies’ corporate statement of purpose, the green grids initiative, the transition to 100% zero-emission cars/vans, the Race to Zero, the Race to Resilience, and so much more. To learn more, hop over to COP26’s website, which has a page fully dedicated to the conference’s outcomes.
As experts in the field of energy and sustainability, we followed COP26 very closely. Here are our main takeaways:
- The Representation and Influence of the Youth Population: At COP26, more than 100,000 young people marched the streets of Glasgow, demanding climate action. Following and during the conference, climate activist Greta Thunberg was less than enthused about the conversations and eventual final decisions that came out of this year’s conference.
- Governments and Leadership: More than 100 heads of government journeyed from around the world to attend and participate in the conference. This trend is an indicator of how climate has moved from being a relatively niche issue dealt with by a relatively small agency in most governments, to being considered a top-ranking issue.
- Private Sector, Getting Involved: Throughout the COP26 conference there was a continuous flow of announcements from private sector companies that wanted to show progress happening within your day-to-day consumer brands. For example, financial investors are dedicating more than $100 trillion to a group of automakers making new commitments around electric vehicles. This is huge! While governments are working on setting the framework to combat climate change, companies are simultaneously taking the pledge to do their part.
So, what’s next? As a company in the business of people, we should take the chance to analyze the lifecycle of our work and our lives. Humans have the capacity to achieve the unthinkable, all we have to do is think about it and put those thoughts into action.
