COP26 is the 2021 United Nations climate change conference held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12. World leaders will arrive in Scotland, alongside tens of thousands of negotiators, government representatives, businesses, and citizens, for twelve days of talks.
The conference is critical for the planet and humanity. So here is what you should know:
It is the latest in a series of UN meetings spanning nearly three decades. It is a “Conference of the Parties” (COP) because representatives from almost every country will attend. This year is the 26th annual summit.
COP21 took place in Paris in 2015. It was the first time that every country agreed to:
- work together to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees and aim for 1.5 degrees,
- adapt to the impacts of a changing climate, and
- make money available to deliver on these aims.
And every country agreed to communicate their emissions reduction targets known as their “Nationally Determined Contribution” (NDC). Countries agreed to update their NDCs every five years, and so the first updates will happen in Glasgow. (You may have noticed that 2021 is six years after the Paris Agreement. The COP was canceled last year due to the pandemic).
Unfortunately, the commitments laid out in Paris did not come close to limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees, and the window for achieving this goal is rapidly closing (most estimates say 2030). And the overall outlook isn’t good, given the recent International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook. It reports that, given current trends, by 2050, global energy use will increase nearly 50%. So, although a rapid transition to cleaner energy sources is underway, there is still no clear pathway to stabilize global temperature increases at 1.5°C.
Business leaders are attending and monitoring COP26 for the following reasons:
- Capital investment in green assets will accelerate and result in increased standardization so that projects can be fairly evaluated and compared.
- National governments will implement new rules and regulations to achieve the agreed targets, which will affect business.
- A growing awareness of climate change, and the extent of the crisis, is likely to change customer preferences and buying behavior, putting pressure on companies to innovate and perhaps change their business models.
