COP26 Ends With Nobody Really Happy

Six years ago, when the hammer was gaveled and the Paris Agreement agreed upon, the negotiators gathered at the massive conference complex on the outskirts of Paris erupted in applause and left the city with a sense of optimism. Celebration ensued in bars across the city for the thousands who had traveled to Paris to push for a deal. The mood at the conclusion of COP26 in Glasgow was notably different. On Saturday, as COP26 came to a close, delegates unanimously agreed to the Glasgow Climate Pact, an update to the Paris Agreement that targets coal-fired power and fossil-fuel subsidies, and calls on countries to produce more aggressive climate plans next year. These new agreements represent giant steps forward in international climate discussions—but few delegates were ready to celebrate openly. In statement after statement during the closing sessions, negotiators from countries around the world suggested that they were accepting the text in the “spirit of compromise” while lamenting that the deal did not go far enough. “The text represents the least-worst outcome,” James Shaw, New Zealand’s climate minister, told his counterparts on Friday. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Last summer, I wrote that a confluence of events including the U.S. presidential election, the massive spending on COVID-19 recovery measures and the impending Glasgow talks would make 2020-2021 most decisive years yet in the fight against climate change, duri...
Source: TIME: Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Uncategorized climate change healthscienceclimate Source Type: news