COP26’s 200 countries adopted an agreement on Saturday to accelerate the fight against global warming, without having to keep it at 1.5 degrees Celsius or responding to requests for aid from poor countries.
Dubbed the “Glasgow Climate Pact”, the text was adopted with a hammer blow from Alok Sharma, the British president of the World Climate Conference, after two weeks of grueling talks.
Noting the difficulty in reaching this agreement, the COP26 president said in unison and was “deeply sorry” with tears in his eyes for the last-minute changes to the fossil fuel issue at the request of China and India. He previously speculated that the agreement “opens a decade of heightened ambition” on climate.
To the critical point of limiting temperatures, while the planet is on a “disastrous” trajectory of 2.7 °C warming compared to the pre-industrial era according to the United Nations, the text provides for their reduction commitments from member states more regularly than ever. calls to increase. for the Paris Agreement to begin in 2022.
But with the possibility of adjustment to “special national circumstances”, a point that has drawn criticism from NGOs over the text’s genuine ambitions.
Furthermore, the agreement found does not ensure compliance with the objectives of the Paris Agreement, limiting warming to “well below” 2 °C and, if possible, 1.5 °C.
But it offers prospects for the British presidency to show success at its objective of seeing Glasgow “keep 1.5 alive”. Experts regularly warn that “every tenth of a degree counts” while disasters linked to climate change are already on the rise: floods, droughts or heat waves, with their attendant damage and victims.