• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Joint Public Issues Team

Churches working for peace and justice

  • Home Page
  • Who We Are
    • Six hopes for society
  • Issues
    • Economy
      • Tax Justice
      • Reset The Debt
      • Living Wage
    • Environment
      • Net Zero In My Neighbourhood
    • Poverty and Inequality
      • The Cost of Living Crisis
      • Universal Credit
      • Truth and Lies
      • Enough
      • Rethink Sanctions
      • Faith in Foodbanks
      • Housing and Homelessness
    • Asylum and Migration
      • Refugees
      • End Hostility
      • The Asylum System
    • Peacemaking
      • The Arms Trade
      • Nuclear Weapons
      • Drones
      • Peacemaking resources
    • Politics and Elections
      • Elections
      • Meet Your MP
      • Art of the Possible
      • Brexit
    • Other Issues
      • International Development
      • Modern Slavery and Exploitation
        • Forced labour in fashion
  • Get Involved
    • JPIT Conference 2022
    • Newsletter
    • Events
    • Walking with Micah
  • Resources
    • Advent
    • 10 Minutes on… podcast
    • Politics in the Pulpit?
    • Stay and Pray
    • Season of Creation
    • Prayers
    • Public Issues Calendar
    • Poetry
    • Small Group Resources
  • Blog

COP26 – what was achieved?

Briefings, Environment · 24 November, 2021

COP26 was the most significant climate summit since Paris in 2015. The measures outlined in the COP26 Glasgow Climate Pact are critical if we are to set a course to keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees.

Members of churches, in the UK and further afield, have been campaigning in advance of COP26 to ensure that topics such as paying for the loss and damage cause by climate disasters were on the agenda for the Glasgow summit. So what ultimately was achieved?  You can find a 3-page overview here but meanwhile, here are my headlines on the summit’s achievements and disappointments:

  • New language was agreed by all on coal, oil and gas to signal that fossil fuels have had their day.
  • There was a luke-warm commitment from nations to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5 degrees.
  • The total pledges made so far, if met, sets the world on course to a disastrous warming of 2.4 degrees.[1]
  • The long-promised $100bn/year of climate finance is in sight (expected by 2023), but the cold reality is that much more than this will be required.
  • There was agreement that governments will work together on the implementation of a loss and damage mechanism. But there was pushback from some major donors (for example, the US) on providing additional funding for this area.
  • The completion of the ‘Paris Rulebook’ gives greater confidence that governments might be prevented from using creative accounting when reporting their actual carbon emissions against their pledges.

When you look at the cumulative picture, actual tangible progress is far too slow. Worryingly, it is difficult to see where the landing zone might be for negotiations over quantities of finance for mitigation and the stronger targets necessary on the part of large emitters in Asia, Africa or Central/Southern America (as well as the US).

However, a sense of urgency was evident at COP26 and this was reflected in some of the outcomes. Consequently, it will be more difficult to park issues for years into the future, or to claim (as some governments are tempted to do) that there is no need for a further review of a nation’s targets for five years. Instead, all governments have been urged to review their contributions by 2022 in the light of the overall deficit.  There are now a number of new initiatives on the agenda for COP27 in Egypt next year, including the funding of compensation for loss and damage.

In summary, COP26 has put in place a whole new architecture for taking forward the Paris agreement and pledges. But, like investments, the value of negotiated agreements can go down as well as up. Willingness to collaborate is key. COP27 next year is now even more critical and there is more on the agenda than was the case just a few weeks ago.

Read the full briefing here.

If you want to hear more of Steve’s reflections on COP26, listen to this edition of our ’10 Minutes On’ podcast:

[1] According to Climate Action Tracker https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/

Filed Under: Briefings, Environment

Steve Hucklesby

Steve's background is in international relief and development, having worked for 10 years on programmes in conflict and post-conflict settings in Africa and Asia. He is committed to exploring Christian responses to conflict and injustice, covering areas such as non-proliferation, ethical investment and climate change.

Previous Post: « Response to COP26
Next Post: Write to your MP in the wake of deaths crossing the Channel – November 2021 »

Primary Sidebar

Search

Recent Posts

  • JPIT’s Review of 2022
  • What does Government Support for Asylum Seekers really provide?
  • God with Us – the Refugees of Calais and Dunkirk
  • How can we respond to COP27?
  • Statement on the conclusion of the COP27 Climate Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt
  • COP27 – what should we be looking for?
  • “He has filled the hungry with good things” – What we need from the Autumn Budget
  • What are the stories we should tell about the humanitarian crisis at Manston Airport Asylum centre?
  • How can we be sure that the products we buy are not the result of modern slavery?
  • Why I hate Warm Banks (and why my church is opening one)
  • How does our theology call us to challenge Poverty?
  • Introducing Alfie
  • Biden says nuclear risk is the highest since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis
  • Churches respond to risk to benefit levels
  • Briefing on the ‘Mini Budget’ for the Enough to Live group
  • Introducing Hazel
  • Introducing Hannah
  • An energy cap announcement in three parts: the good, the absent and the ugly
  • Afghanistan and the UK – One Year On from the Fall Of Kabul
  • Inflation, interest rates and the poorest

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter

Footer

Follow us

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Quick links

Stay and Pray
Politics in the Pulpit
Faith in Politics podcast
Public Issues Calendar
Useful Links

Our work

About Us
Meet the Team
Join the Team 
Internship
Our Newsletter

Contact us

25 Marylebone Road
London NW1 5JR

Tel: 020 7916 8632

enquiries@jpit.uk

Copyright © 2023 · Showcase Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in