COP26, or this year’s United Nations climate summit, officially began on Sunday in Glasgow, Scotland. The two-week conference culminates in a journey that began about 30 years ago in the famous Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, one of the largest carbon emitters on the planet.
COP means the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
In Glasgow, leaders from nearly 200 countries will discuss how to address the challenge of global warming to slow the pace of climate change and formulate a plan to deliver what was considered crucial in Rio de Janeiro for the survival of humans in particular and life in Glasgow. general on earth.
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Although the COP was first held in 1995, it emerged from the 1992 Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro. A milestone was reached in Kyoto, Japan in 1997 when a protocol was established to combat climate change. Eighteen years later, the famous Paris-France agreement was signed to set a goal to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius.
Here’s a look at the trip.
WHY CLIMATE?
The 1990s were momentous in world history. The economies were about to explode. The Internet revolution was turning the world into a global people where the physical barriers of time and space were breaking down in a pleasantly shocking way.
It was also when a segment of researchers and scientists issued warnings about the health of the world. By 1990, theories such as Limits to Growth had made world intellectuals and some political leaders think.
The pace of growth was considered unsustainable. It was damaging the environment and, consequently, the land. This pushed world leaders to the first such big meeting in Brazil.
1992: EARTH SUMMIT IN RIO DE JANEIRO
The Rio Earth Summit established what is considered the architecture of international cooperation to fight climate change. As a result, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) emerged. This convention became the parent agreement setting goals and principles for future agreements on climate change.
The Rio summit was significant, as it was possibly the first time that international leadership agreed that the developed world disproportionately exploited land resources to make unbridled economic progress. Along the way, rich countries polluted the land to such an extent that a course correction was needed.
The Earth Summit agreed that developing and poor countries had fewer obligations and economic and technological capabilities to reduce carbon emissions.
For their part, developed countries accepted the commitment to take all measures to reduce their emission levels. Although the commitment was not binding.
1995: COP, BERLIN
The first meeting of the COP was held in Berlin, Germany, in March 1995. The parties decided to meet annually to check on the progress of the fight against climate change.
1997: COP3, KYOTO
This was an innovative event in the fight against global warming and efforts to curb climate change. It adopted what is called the Kyoto Protocol. It is considered the basis of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The Kyoto Protocol first set specific emission reduction targets for developed countries. The deadline was decided to be 2012. Developing economies were encouraged to take voluntary action to reduce emissions. The principle was called CBR common but differentiated responsibilities.
2007: COP13, BALI
By now, China was emerging as a challenge for the world’s largest economies. They were uncomfortable with the Kyoto Protocol based on the existing CBDR. China had become the world’s largest carbon emitter.
The bloc developed at this summit in Indonesia led China and India, demanding that fast-growing economies participate in reducing carbon emissions in a specific way for an effective fight against climate change. Some leaders in the developed world even threatened to abandon the Kyoto Protocol if their concerns were not addressed.
2009: COP15, COPENHAGEN
This climate summit in Denmark was sour in a sense and failed. Developed and developing blocs were heavily divided on who should do how much to control global warming and thus curb climate change.
The best thing about the Copenhagen summit was that developed countries agreed to provide $ 100 billion each year in climate finance to help developing countries from 2020 onwards.
2015: COP21, PARIS
A successor agreement was signed to the Kyoto Protocol as the Paris Agreement. With that, the Kyoto Protocol expired when the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2020.
The Paris Agreement, unlike the Kyoto Protocol, does not assign emission reduction targets to any country. It calls on the members of the COP to take individual and collective action in such a way as to limit the global rise in temperatures to 2 ° C since the pre-industrial revolution.
2021: COP26, GLASGOW
The Glasgow summit has been delayed by a year due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The summit is likely to finalize the rules for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. This is maintained when individual countries express divergent views on the creation of future carbon markets.
Concern has been raised that rich countries can use carbon credits to turn poor and developing countries into a landfill with cash incentives. This goes against the basic idea that the earth is one body, and any part of it, if sick, would spread the disease throughout the body.
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