Climate crisis: we must rise to the challenge

The eyes of the world were on Scotland as the UN Climate Summit took place recently in Glasgow.

As nearly 200 countries came together to set new commitments to curb emissions and adapt to the impacts of global warming. After over two weeks of negotiations, COP26 came to a close, but in terms of a satisfactory conclusion it has been found wanting.

Commitments to more ambitious carbon-cutting plans and increased support for the climate response of poorer nations are to be welcomed, but the closing statements were undermined by the last-ditch watering down in regard to coal power.

The Prime Minister can argue that “phasing down” and “phasing out” mean much the same, but absence of firm dates or targets is a disappointment and the change from a goal which was clearly defined to something far less tangible only illustrates how we continue to fall short.

Limiting dangerous global warming ultimately will be the only measure that matters.

The failure to deliver an agreement to get us on course to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees was a huge miss and one that highlights the continuing influence of fossil fuel companies, whose representation at the summit outnumbered the delegates of any single nation.

That the pact keeps the

1.5 goal “only just” within reach has resulted in the Climate Action Tracker describing COP26 as having a massive credibility, action and commitment gap.

We have to question whether the urgency of our climate crisis is being responded to as it must.

Even in the areas where agreement has been reached there is still much to do.

There is no formal policing process in place or sanctions for a failure to deliver so the main ways of holding our governments to account are through public scrutiny and political pressure. Previous summits have too often resulted in a failure to deliver on promises and the translation into policy is the key.

The UK retains responsibility for climate negotiations until next year and has a key role to play in leadership on climate action.

Fingers can be pointed at China, Russia and Saudi Arabia for their failure to cut emissions sooner and faster, but we must also take responsibility.

In Scotland our Government continues to set ambitious climate targets but fails to meet them.

It needs to do much more to provide the policies and support needed to translate the words into results, including focused actions in key sectors such energy, agriculture and transport.

Transport emissions have only fallen by 0.5% since 1990, the pace of change in agriculture is far too slow and support mechanisms often support inertia, and it is a disappointment that the Scottish Government failed to sign up to the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance.

We can certainly take some positives from COP26.

It did bring forward a number of new national commitments and multilateral deals, including on deforestation and methane reduction.

We also saw a new “ratchet” introduced whereby countries are requested to come back with more ambitious commitments for the next summit in Egypt.

Perhaps its greatest achievement is the scale of global attention and public engagement we have seen.

A powerful movement for climate action has been demonstrated and the way we talk about climate issues has changed.

With this comes increased pressure to act and to drive transformational change.

We know the challenge. We need to meet it.