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But a study for the Climate Action Tracker website, by Niklas Höhne at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and his colleagues, showed that, if pledges announced at the COP meeting are implemented, temperatures are still projected to rise 2.4 °C by 2100, well above the 1.5 °C target agreed at the 2015 Paris climate summit.
COP26 also represented progress on several fronts, and it is not the final opportunity to take action; the task continues at COP27 in Egypt next year.
Besides the doubling of adaptation funding to US$40 billion annually from 2025, high-income countries, including oil- and gas-exporting states, agreed for the first time to language that calls for reducing coal-fired power and an end to some types of public subsidy for other fossil fuels.
High-income countries also agreed to set up an office to continue with research on a possible “loss and damage” fund, through which they could make payouts to LMICs that have been affected by climate change that they did not cause.
But simmering below the surface are disagreements on definitions and on the detail of implementation — and that’s where the research community’s input will be vital.
Richer countries are providing around $80 billion annually in climate finance to LMICs, but the lack of an agreed definition means the funds are dominated by loans and include elements such as development assistance , which do not directly reduce carbon emissions.
UN secretary-general António Guterres announced that he is asking a group of experts to “propose clear standards” to measure and analyse companies’ net-zero pledges.
They must span the range of disciplines: a group that is advising on standards for measuring net zero, for example, would need physical scientists working with economists and with researchers who study the methodology of creating financial indices.
The UN allows researchers to observe negotiations directly so they can use these experiences as part of research projects or for teaching case studies.
Stopping global warming will not happen without a partnership between nations, or a contract that all sides believe in, and buy into.