Momentum is everything – Glasgow must accelerate what Paris started

With just days to go until the start of UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in Glasgow, UK, much uncertainty remains about the outcomes of this crucial summit.

The Paris Agreement, brokered at COP21 in 2015, urges countries to strengthen their national climate commitments every five years. Delayed for a year by the pandemic, COP26 represents the first of these key milestones when negotiators are expected to come to the table with enhanced Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that detail their domestic pathways towards fulfilling the Paris goals.

It is a chance for the world to take stock of where we are, and to raise our ambition at a pace that will effect real change.

Our planet faces the dual and interconnected crises of rapid climate change and biodiversity loss. We have years, not decades, to address these existential threats. It’s easy to look at the environment headlines that have dominated news cycles over this past year and conclude that hope is lost – but there’s still time for decisive action.?

This emergency requires myriad solutions, and science shows us that many of these are available here and now. To succeed, we will need to radically transform global economies in ways that reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors - particularly energy, transportation, manufacturing, construction and buildings, and land use. The U.S. alone, for example,?is committed to cutting?its domestic greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 by boosting vehicle efficiency,?expanding?renewable energy, and investing in nature-based solutions, among others.

Without action at scale, delivered in a transparent and equitable way, the world will not have the tools needed to effect change that helps, not harms, people and nature. For Glasgow to secure its place in the history books as the next great milestone in our climate turnaround, COP26 must deliver on the ambitions of those initial negotiations and ensure that, through radical collaboration, we turn promises into action.?

Decisive political commitments are key - I want to see a COP where global leaders embrace the science and deliver implementation plans that will ensure Paris goals aren’t missed. But this is also a COP where corporations and financiers must show how they are helping to align the world economy with climate targets, and in doing so hastening a global transition towards a nature-positive, climate-neutral, and equitable future… Where Indigenous Peoples’ voices are prominent and afforded the platform they deserve as custodians of the Earth’s most climate-critical and biodiversity-rich ecosystems… Where nature’s solutions are given equal billing to technological ones… And where we can confidently say we stepped up for a brighter future.?