COP26

By: Elsa Plank

The 26th Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), hosted by the UN, ended on November 13. Held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 13, 2021, it was the first COP summit in almost two years due to COVID-19.

This crucial summit consisted of representatives from almost every country worldwide who met and discussed the imminent effects of climate change on the planet. A primary goal is to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (the world already has 1.1 degrees Celsius), and to do so; climate mitigation must be accelerated immediately. However, countries have not taken the necessary steps to halt climate change as the due date to mitigate fastly approaching. Now is the time to go “into emergency mode,” including taking many significant steps such as giving billions to climate finance commitment, stopping carbon emissions, and mass production of clean energy alternatives to coal. Sadly, during the COP26 misleading climate promises were made by many heads of states and titan industries. By the end of the summit, diplomats agreed to create fortified plans for their return next year, including reducing their harmful emissions and committing to switching to eco-friendly green energy alternatives to coal, however in the past, these statements never held up, and the G-20 made weak claims about their actions to save the planet that bears the full brunt of the climate crisis on developing countries. Moreover, a few of these high-polluting and wealthy nations, such as Russia, have said they will continue not to take action until later this century. 

Dr. Hoesung Lee, Alok Sharma, Carolina Schmidt, Patricia Espinosa, and Abdulla Shahid attended the summit. (right to the left) (Photo: Alberto Pezzali, Pool)

These setbacks make Earth’s and humanity’s future bleak as those responsible for this climate crisis continue to stall their responses, and deadlines for no returning pass.