Without immediate action, the average global temperature might climb by three to six degrees Celsius by 2100. What would a three degree rise in Australia look like? If Australia warms by 3 degrees, the number of days with temperatures above 35 degrees in Sydney would increase from 3.1 to 11 a year, while in Melbourne it would increase from 11 to 24. The average number of days in Darwin that are hotter than 35 degrees would increase from 11 to 265 – every day would be a heat stress day.
As the temperature rises, in addition to people dying of heat strokes, diseases that are typically prevalent in the tropics may spread to more temperate parts of Australia. An increase in global warming has already killed about half the hard corals in the Great Barrier Reef and contributed to the droughts, fires, and floods in Australia in the past years. Climate scientists confirm at three degrees, no great barrier will exist. Crop production would drop by nearly half; it has already dropped by 22% since 2000. Extreme fire days would increase by 100 to 300 percent with a three degree increase.. With the bushfires of the last two years, we have already lost an area about three times the size of Tasmania, with 3 billion creatures being killed or displaced.
To limit the rise to two degrees Celsius, we need to have zero net greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century. We need to act now.
The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26 for conference of parties, is the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference. It is being held in Glasgow, Scotland, and the United Kingdom, between 31st October and 12th November 2021. This is the third meeting of the parties to the Paris Agreement.
The Paris Agreement is an international treaty or commitment on climate change, adopted in 2015. It has been written to ensure countries adhere to the rules to decrease climate change effects, take actions, and develop a financial plan to move towards a greener earth. The Agreement was signed by 196 countries at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference near Paris, France.
The Paris Agreement essentially establishes long-term temperature goals to keep the rise in global mean temperature well below 2 °C (3.6 °F) above pre-industrial levels, and preferably to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). This would substantially reduce the impacts of climate change. This temperature increase is basically affected by the use of fossil fuels and thus by the carbon emissions from them.
The Paris agreement was the first time ever that every country agreed to work together to adapt to the impacts of a changing climate and to make money available to deliver on these aims. Under this agreement, countries committed to bringing forward national plans on how much they would reduce their emissions – known as “Nationally Determined Contributions” or NDCs.
This conference is the first time since COP21 that parties are expected to commit to enhanced ambition towards mitigating climate change.
25,000 delegates from 200 countries are attending the conference this month. America backed out of the Paris agreement in 2020 but is back this year. After Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and his denial of climate science, Biden’s administration is working hard to restore America’s credibility. However, Biden has been criticised for arriving at the meeting with only words on paper. His government has been hesitant to significantly reduce oil and gas drilling in the United States. The president’s “climate leadership” discourse contradicts his actions. About 2,500 additional oil and gas permits were issued in the first six months of Biden’s presidency, whereas Trump’s administration took a year to reach the same number.
China is the world’s largest carbon dioxide emitter by volume, accounting for over a quarter of global greenhouse emissions. The country’s efforts to lower these will be highly scrutinised at the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) conference in November 2021.
Significantly, China’s President, Xi Jinping, has stated that his country’s emissions will peak before 2030 and that carbon neutrality will be achieved by 2060. He also promised that his country would stop building coal-fired power plants in other countries.
Beijing, on the other hand, is hesitating. China’s peak-year vow of 2030 is widely seen as a target that may be accelerated, and domestic coal plants are currently being constructed. Xi Jinping’s absence from COP26 has been widely criticised by world leaders and journalists, raising serious doubts about the effectiveness of the conference.
Goals of the COP26
Coal is the single largest contributor to climate change, accounting for more than a third of all energy consumed worldwide. Twenty-eight countries have joined an international vow to phase out coal, including Ukraine, Poland, and Singapore, increasing the total number of countries and organisations involved in the Powering Past Coal Alliance to 165.
China, the United States, and India, the world’s three largest coal consumers, have not joined the alliance.
– Ending deforestation:
Cutting down trees contributes to climate change by diminishing forests, which absorb a large quantity of CO2. In the first significant agreement reached at the COP26 climate summit, more than 100 world leaders pledged to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. Brazil is one of the signatories, which is a good result due to the fact that large swaths of the Amazon jungle have been lost to deforestation. Critics claim that a prior agreement in 2014 “failed to reduce deforestation at all” and promises need to be kept this time.
The pledge’s signatories, which include Canada, Brazil, Russia, China, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United States, and the United Kingdom, cover around 85 percent of the world’s forests.
– Moving to renewables:
More than 40 international leaders have pledged to collaborate to accelerate the adoption of sustainable technologies by enacting global standards and laws. The announcement will be made during the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. Agriculture and electricity will be among the first five high-carbon sectors to be targeted. Its goal is to encourage private investment in low-carbon technology around the world. Similar international efforts to promote clean technology have been made in the past, but none have been as ambitious as this intergovernmental accord.
We can swiftly reduce carbon emissions by replacing diesel generators and coal-fired power plants with renewable alternatives. Over the last decade, substantial technological advancements have made renewable energy the most cost-effective alternative for new power generation in more than two-thirds of the world. For the first time in history, technology exists to enable those who do not have access to electricity to be empowered reliably and economically.
As a result, human development is boosted by large job creation, gender parity is advanced by enhanced accessibility, and emissions are reduced to avoid the climatic crisis. The alliance will collaborate closely with rising and developing countries that are eager to embrace an equitable and inclusive energy transition in order to reduce carbon emissions while increasing incomes.
This conference is a pivotal moment in the fight against climate change, if it fails to deliver due to capitalist hypocrisy, humanity’s future and the planet will burn.
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