It is against this backdrop that the Conference of Parties , with its 197 signatory nations pledged to reduce emissions, begins its annual session in Glasgow, Scotland, from Oct 31 to Nov 12.
From net zero and carbon credits to climate finance and mitigation strategies — the conference will have world leaders debating issues and also discuss the global stocktake, used to monitor the implementation and evaluation of progress made by nations, with respect to their pledged goals.
But the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, the UN scientific body analysing climate change, warns that if the given emission trend continues, it would get harder to cap emissions.
An irreversible climate change would prove to be detrimental to the rebuilding efforts of ecosystems and communities that are already affected by the disasters and prove to be an existential crisis to vulnerable communities .
The 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference is important since it comes close on the heels of the pandemic, and because it is time to take stock of the progress made by nations with respect to their emission reduction pledges as was decided in the landmark Paris Agreement.
The concept of net-zero has gained a lot of traction, wherein companies and nations alike are pledging to commit to a year, beyond which their emissions won’t peak and will balance out their emissions by removing an equivalent amount GHG from the air.
International efforts to understand and mitigate climate change have been many, starting with the famous Kyoto Protocol that gave specific emission reduction targets to developed countries.
The next major conference was COP15 in Copenhagen that brought 110 heads of nations together to commit $100 billion every year in climate finance for developing countries to help them adapt to climate change and mitigate further climate risks.
By the time COP21 came, many developing nations had accumulated credits for future selling, but it turned out to be a vain effort as this conference changed the whole carbon market, where the previously accumulated credits were rendered useless.
The Paris Accord, as the COP got famously known, focused on winning consensus among its 197 members and gave way for Nationally Determined Contributions .
Article 6 of the agreement, which outlines the NDC and linking of carbon emission trading systems, also allows countries with low emissions to sell their leftover carbon allowance to larger emitters, with an overall cap on their emission to ensure a net reduction.
With developing nations still trying to build their infrastructure, human capital and industrial institutions, all requiring energy and technologies that still, unfortunately, depend on fossil fuel for a larger part; the nations aren’t ready to ratchet their NDCs.
Although it has set a target to achieve net zero by 2060 and is investing heavily in renewable energy, it still has operations in offshore coal mining and is also making new investments in it.
It is back into the fold with Joe Biden re-signing on the first day of his presidency and promising a significant portion of the $2 trillion plan in the next four years to be spent on building the clean energy sector.
India, being in the third position, has not yet revised the NDC.
But with cooperation and dialogue, the international community can leverage the conference to reduce the points of friction and concentrate on the points of commonality.
There has to be more clarity on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which can help both private and public sectors to align their activities with the carbon market scenario.
We need to have the right tools to measure the adaptation and mitigation success, as, without a well-defined criterion to measure, we might be prone to repeat mistakes of an adaptation strategy that does more harm than good or is biased against marginalised parties.