The climate train leaves Amsterdam on Saturday 30 October at 8.47 am. He still picks up passengers in Rotterdam and Brussels, is in London at noon and rolls into Glasgow at six in the evening – if everything goes well on the British rail network. Those who take the fully booked special train, which was mainly intended for (young) activists and scientists, should therefore be in time for the COP26 climate conference in the Scottish city, which opens on Sunday.
What is happening there in the first two weeks of November is what the whole world is looking at – this is not an exaggeration –. "It is considered to be the most important conference since Paris 2015," says Rixa Schwarz, who follows international climate policy at the organization Germanwatch. Whether the states make sufficient commitments to limit global warming and agree on further steps depends on the negotiations in Scotland. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also ruled in the summer: "If there are no immediate, rapid and comprehensive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it is no longer possible to limit warming to little more than 1.5 or even 2.0 degrees." These figures relate to the temperature increase in 2100 compared to the pre-industrial period; 1.1 degrees has already been reached, according to the latest IPCC report.
Keeping the so-called 1.5-degree goal within reach is probably the most important project by the British hosts and most participants. It made a remarkable career: At the failed summit of Copenhagen 2009, it was a limit at 2.0 degrees and requested the Parisian agreement "significantly less than 2.0 degrees" with an option to 1.5 degrees, this temperature limit is In the meantime, practically unchallenged the central and only goal. This is also because the findings are now increasing that there should already be numerous dangerous, uncontrollable climate impacts. But whether it is still possible to adhere to the border seems doubtful to many in view of the sluggish reaction of society.
As is so often the case at these Conferences of the Parties, i.e. the meetings of the member states of the Rio Framework Convention on Climate Change, many important reports circulate in the weeks before the start of the conference, organizations make their demands and announce their positions. During the conference, decisions or progress are expected in four important areas.
starting place
In the days before the conference, two UN organizations explained that on the basis of the present commitments of the nation states, the world will miss the goals agreed in the Paris Agreement.
The United Nations Environmental Program, UNEP, states in its annual "Emissions Gap Report": the world is currently heading for a warming of 2.7 degrees.
If the states comply with the given commitments for 2050, namely, according to a balance sheet calculation of sources and lower, no longer exposing a climate rate-"net zero"-it could remain 2.2 degrees if heated.
The International Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn, to which the states submit their climate protection plans – which are voluntary according to the Paris Agreement – made a similar judgement. According to the latest evaluation, the policies of the 143 nations that have recently updated and mostly tightened their targets could lead to their emissions falling by about eleven percent below the reduced emissions in the pandemic year 2020 by 2030. However, if you take all 192 countries, then about 14 percent more greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere than recently.
"This cop is the last chance to keep the 1.5-degree goal within reach," says Niklas Höhne from the Newclimate Institute in Cologne. »With all the articles that the countries have proposed so far, the global greenhouse gas emissions stabilize around 2030. However, they would have to be halved for 1.5 degrees. That is an enormous gap. "
Further current findings:
Immediately before the cop days in Rome, the heads of government of the largest industrialized countries. At the meeting of the so -called G20, further commitments and stipulations are expected, which - as this was planned by Great Britain and Italy - are given the right swing at a World Leaders Summit, i.e. a summit at the beginning of the conference, the negotiations in Glasgow .
More climate protection is the first objective.
Before the COP26 there was a wave of promises from states who want to commit to the net zero goal in the middle of the 21st century. The EU would like to reach the 2050, Germany preferred its destination to 2045 after the Federal Constitutional Court's decision. According to the United States, Australia has now announced that 2050 no longer wants to emit greenhouse gases in 2050.
China, on the other hand, has so far been talking about the year 2060, as has recently been Saudi Arabia. Turkey announces that it will now be the last G-20 country to ratify the Paris Agreement and stop its emissions from 2053. A plan from India is missing and could be announced in Rome or Glasgow. Expectations that China will step up there or even before and present more ambitious targets were disappointed on Thursday: The superpower has only formalized the information and made it somewhat more precise.
"Netto-zero is the new normal," says Karsten Sach from the Federal Environment Ministry, the German chief negotiator at the cop meetings. "80 percent of the countries are committed to this and the pressure on the rest grows." However, it will not be possible to reach 100 percent in Glasgow.
In any case, climate experts see the real challenge elsewhere. "A goal without a plan is just a wish," says Astrid Kiendler-Scharr from Forschungszentrum Jülich, chairwoman of the German Climate Consortium. In order to stop emissions by 2050, states must take concrete steps immediately. Niklas Höhne, whose institute is involved in the evaluations of the Climate Action Tracker at the country level, confirms: "Not a single one of these countries has implemented measures to actually embark on the path towards net zero, not a single one." The gap is therefore so large "that the question does not even arise as to who is good enough: nobody is good enough."
After all, there are gradations: Saudi Arabia only wants to produce on net zero within the country, but continue to produce oil-the emissions then go to the customer's account according to the government's ideas. Australia would like to sell coal to the bitter end and only down by 26 to 28 percent with its emissions in 2030. Mexico and Brazil have annoyed international partners with arithmetic tricks that enable them to emissions higher emissions without soft their destinations on paper. According to an evaluation of the Climate Action Tracker, only the Gambia plan is completely compatible with the 1.5-degree goal, four other African states as well as Nepal, Costa Rica and the only industrial country in the UK are close. There, the coal phase -out is practically already carried out.
Second objective: progress on specific issues
The USA and the EU are proposing an agreement on methane for the COP. It is a greenhouse gas that disappears from the atmosphere much faster than CO2, but has a much stronger effect molecule by molecule. Overall, it is therefore the second largest factor of global warming. Methane is the main component of natural gas and is also released in coal mines, garbage dumps and agriculture, especially in animal husbandry and rice cultivation.
The agreement, which now supports 34 states, stipulates to reduce the output of the gas by 30 percent by 2030. According to newspaper reports, the American special representative for climate policy, ex-foreign minister John Kerry, hopes to get more than 100 commitments. However, four of the largest issuers have so far rejected the agreement: China, Brazil, India and Russia.
The British hosts expect further progress in four sectors, which Prime Minister Boris Johnson summarizes as "coal, cars, cash, and trees": coal, cars, money and trees. 41 nations as well as many regions, provinces and companies now belong to an alliance called »Powering Past Coal«; new commitments are to be announced in Glasgow. States should no longer use coal in their own countries and no longer promote projects in others. A conference day is also dedicated to the transport sector, where the British hope to make progress in emission-free cars.
In addition, the hosts started an initiative to stop the deforestation of forests and to reforest areas. In the first step, there should be no longer permits for grimming for the cultivation of coffee, cocoa, soy and palm oil.
"This was a forgotten question: How do we restore ecosystems that sequester carbon dioxide?" says Isabel Cavalier of the Colombian organization Transforma. "Without such a change in land use, the 1.5-degree target cannot be achieved, regardless of the development of emissions. That has to play a role now."
Third objective: Enough resources for developing nations
The missing of the four terms in Johnson's mantra is cash: money. Already at the conference in Copenhagen in 2009, the industrialized countries had promised to provide $ 100 billion every year so that measures for climate protection and adaptation could be financed. The promise currently applies until 2025, after which the sum is to be increased. The rich nations for the start year probably broke the promise, as the designated president of COP26, Alok Sharma, admits.
This has caused a lot of criticism. For example, the head of the Center for Climate Change and Development in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Saleemul Huq, said during an interview in September: "If you don't provide the 100 billion for 2021 in Glasgow, you obviously can't keep your promises." This would have meant, as other experts also saw it, a relapse into rigid camps.
That is why Sharma has clamped the German environmental secretary Jochen Flasbarth with the Canadian Environment Minister in order to save the financing. The results were announced last Monday: According to this, the industrialized countries will probably only create the symbolic sum of $ 100 billion in 2023, but provide enough money per year for the years 2021 to 2025. The deficiency in 2020 of possibly 15 billion would probably not be balanced.
"It wasn't what we promised," Flasbarth admits. "Delivering on commitments is the most important currency in the negotiations, but this outcome should at least put us in a good mood." Providing the money has nothing to do with generosity: "It is an essential part of climate policy, a sign of fairness and historical responsibility."
However, the distribution is apparently not correct either. Alok Sharma himself says that there should be more non-repayable grants: in 2019 they accounted for only 30 percent, the rest were loan offers. And Saleemul Huq complained that, as expected, half of the money for adaptation measures had not gone to the most vulnerable, weakest states: recently, only 20 percent of it was spent, while 80 percent went to stronger states and projects to reduce emissions.
In addition, the summit in Glasgow, the expert from Bangladesh, finally had to deal with the third pillar in addition to climate protection and adapation: it is generally called "Loss and Damage", so it is about money to restore damaged or lost infrastructure and assets . There is a high additional financial needs for this, says Sven Harmeling from the Care International organization. "We must not represent this further as a sub -topic of adaptation and thus keep it small."
In any case, it has long since become clear that the fight against the climate crisis is the cheaper option if you compare it to waiting. This had already been stated in 2006 by the report by Lord Nicholas Stern of the Grantham Institute in London. An update published Tuesday reinforces the conclusion: "Any reasonable estimate of the cost of inaction would be higher today, and the cost of action is lower than it was in 2006."
Fourth goal: to complete the set of rules for the Paris Agreement
For years, the countries at the COPS have been working on setting up common rules for the accounting of the greenhouse gases and other clauses of the Paris Agreement. Much of it was adopted in 2018. For example, the base years and time horizons that make numbers comparable remain open. In addition, numerous participants demand complete transparency about the emission and the effects of the respective politics. "Of course there are also political resistance," says Rixa Schwarz from Germanwatch. "Some don't want to be looked at the cards so much." Other states fear that they do not have the capacities to collect the information for filling out.
Article 6 of the Paris Agreement plays a special role. It stipulates that states may cooperate in order to reduce emissions. Then, for example, a country in the tropics could reforest its forest with financing from an industrial nation, which ultimately counts the bound CO2 towards its targets. However, the article already warns against abuse – for example, that both countries include the effect in their balance sheets.
Some states would like to expand this compensation elsewhere into an international marketplace; perhaps certificates that were created by a similar mechanism of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 will also be traded there. Above all, climate protection organizations are trying to prevent both. The old certificates have often been issued under dubious rules; and even if they have a high standard, the emission savings are already far in the past.
"Certificate trade should only enable what cannot be created at home," explains Rixa Schwarz's position of Germanwatch. "A lowering of the emissions takes place primarily in their own country, which results in more climate protection." Greenpeace would even expressly see it as a success of the negotiations in Glasgow if such an international trade mechanism is averted, says Campaigner Lisa Göldner. Negotiations on Article 6 could therefore be the biggest challenge, State Secretary Flasbarth estimates.
The rules also play a role in how emissions from aviation and shipping develop. They are not subject to national plans. The aviation industry, for example, has introduced a mechanism called Corsia to compensate for the expected growth in emissions with allowances – initially on a voluntary basis. Whether this has any effect at all could therefore also be decided in Glasgow.
In principle, however, many experts consider it very important that the rules are finally adopted – if only to show that the world community can also take decisions within the framework of the Paris Agreement.
If the conference were successful in what way?
In addition to the individual topics, it will probably be particularly important whether the conference will be seen in Paris at the end of the first phase or as the beginning of a decade of the rapid greenhouse gas savings. "If the COP does not manage to show a perspective, as is increased in the next decade of ambition, both in avoiding emissions and the provision of funding, then it will be a witness," says Carl-Friedrich Schleusner from Humboldt -Universität and the research group Climate Analytics in Berlin. Lisa Göldner from Greenpeace would also be important for success, added the next review of the national climate goals to 2023 instead of waiting for five years. And anchoring that the exit from the fossil fuels should now be tackled quickly.
Much of this, however, is on a wish list on which several points could remain unfulfilled. "We will make great progress," says British Special Representative for Climate Change Nick Bridge, "but we cannot solve everything." Perhaps it is already a sign that the climate train does not bring its international passengers from Glasgow back to Amsterdam. Everyone has to take care of the return journey themselves. A party car is certainly not provided.
