Next week more than 100 world leaders will descend on Glasgow for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26. The conference, which is the successor to the landmark Paris meeting of 2015, has been hailed as the most important climate summit in history. But whether the hype is justified very much depends on the course of action taken by leaders in the weeks ahead.
Under the terms of the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries pledged to reconvene every five years to agree more ambitious emissions-reductions targets that align with reaching net zero by the middle of the century. Setting targets is an important first step in the fight against climate breakdown, and it’s crucial that countries that have disproportionately contributed to the climate crisis lead by example. But if COP26 is to succeed, progress also needs to be made on how these targets are going to be achieved. It is in this area that the gap between politics and science remains perilously large.
One stark example of this came back in July when the British prime minister's spokesperson for the COP26 climate summit, Allegra Stratton, suggested that the British public can tackle the climate crisis through “micro-steps” such as not rinsing dishes before putting them in the dishwasher.
