Is It Time to Postpone the 2020 Climate Summit?

By Felix Dodds and Michael StraussNEW YORK, Mar 25 2020 (IPS) With the coronavirus pandemic sweeping the planet and the governments of both wealthy and poorer nations overwhelmed by the demands of managing a response, the scheduling of this year’s critical UN Climate Summit is suddenly in doubt. COP26 (formally, the 26th annual Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) is planned for Glasgow, Scotland (UK) from 9-20 November. It will be the culmination of five years of negotiations since the historic 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. More than 100 presidents and prime ministers are expected to present their nations’ plans for carrying out the sweeping environmental, economic and energy changes necessary to keep the Earth’s warming to survivable levels. In all, over 30,000 government delegates, intergovernmental officials and stakeholder representatives are preparing to attend. The agenda of COP26 is deep and urgent. Besides reporting how they plan to reduce oil, coal and gas production and increase renewable energy to limit global temperature rise to below 2°C (and preferably 1.5°C), governments must agree how to calculate whether each is fulfilling its pledges, what steps to take to deal with those which haven’t, and whether the total reductions agreed to are sufficient to avoid catastrophic climate impacts (so far they’re not). National leaders will be looking for positive grand visions to pull their people out of pandemic- induced ...
Source: IPS Inter Press Service - Health - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: Climate Change Global Headlines Health TerraViva United Nations Source Type: news