The Conference on Prevention of Negative Climate Change (COP-26), which lasted almost two weeks in Glasgow, Scotland, ended a day later than the due date. The reason is the difficulties in agreeing on the final document, the preparation of which already took ten planned days. And, despite the seemingly achieved compromise between two hundred countries, few seem to be happy with the final pact. However, such a result did not come as a surprise: even on the eve of the opening of the meeting, the participants predicted her failure.
The main goal of the summit was to develop specific measures to curb the rise in temperature on the planet. However, in the end, it was not possible to agree on this. There are enough reasons for this: from the very beginning of the event, representatives of the participating countries preferred political issues to climate issues. In the United States, they paid attention to the “absence” of the leaders of Russia and China, in Moscow they mocked that the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, having arrived in Glasgow, missed the key meeting of the heads of state, and the American leader Joe Biden confused the tundra and the taiga, which provided top positions in the information space – to the detriment of, in fact, the main agenda of the summit.
Shortly before the Glasgow conference, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson spoke about small chances of success, who estimated the probability of signing the necessary agreements at no more than 60%. The predictions of the experienced politician came true. The issue of curbing the rise in temperature has been put on the back burner – it will now only be reanimated on COP-27, which is expected to take place next year in Egypt, although given the pandemic it is dangerous to guess: ultimately, the Glasgow summit was postponed from 2020 th.
In addition to the lack of a clear plan to overcome the warming, the parties failed to achieve consensus on other not-so-high priority issues. So, in particular, as noted by foreign media outlets, the initial draft of the final document was about avoiding the use of coal. However, the intervention of the representatives of China and India led to the dilution of the wording. The Glasgow Climate Pact contains only the intention to “reduce” the use of coal, on which many developing economies continue to depend.
The Glasgow debate was driven in part by a report released in August by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – the United Nations body responsible for evaluating scientific research – detailing the catastrophic consequences ahead for the planet if the world does not cut emissions quickly and dramatically. greenhouse gases. An October report from the UN Meteorological Agency reported an impending water crisis, and a concomitant increase – in different regions – floods, droughts and other natural disasters.
As noted in the pact, at the current rate of carbon emissions, the planet has only 11 years to reach the “point of no return”. Already, experts call 85% of the world’s population affected by negative climate change, recalling that many states literally risk being under water.
The summit participants mentioned that the current financial investments are not enough to effectively counter environmental threats. However, it was not possible to work out specific mechanisms to overcome this. Countries whose economies are tied to the extraction and sale of raw materials are still in no hurry to invest in “green” energy, while it is not able to cover all the needs of more responsible states in this regard.
The failure of the meeting in Glasgow, it seems, no one wants to hide. UN Secretary General Antonio Guteres, who usually smoothes the rough edges in his speeches regarding international controversies, admitted that the summit did not achieve its original goals.
– Our fragile planet in the balance. We are still on the brink of a climate catastrophe, ”he said, reiterating the need to allocate at least $ 100 billion to support developing countries.
The problem is not only in the positions of the world powers. Since the widely publicized Paris Agreement was signed six years ago, eco-activists around the world have increasingly made themselves known, demanding that leaders fulfill their commitments. The same phenomenon of Greta Thunberg, who has become a kind of symbol in the struggle for the preservation of the environment, is a direct consequence of such actions. Of course. The Swedish young activist did not ignore the Glasgow summit, saying that the meeting was in the blah-blah-blah format, and the main battle for the climate was going on outside the walls of the UN. Given the popularity of Thunberg, it’s easy to guess: state institutions will again lose their authority among the population.
