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Opinion | COP26: time for countries to raise their climate game for Glasgow, and beyond
- The Paris and future climate agreements should be implemented through national laws, where politically feasible
- While summit success hangs in the balance, Glasgow still has the potential to create a foundation of global sustainable development for billions of people
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The climate change agenda has had a lower profile for much of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, with the success of the COP26 summit in Glasgow hanging in the balance, October should see a super surge in high-profile climate announcements.
With just a month before the UN Climate Change Conference begins, the United Nations General Assembly last week set the tone for a big October.
US President Joe Biden pledged to work with Congress to quadruple America’s financial commitment to developing nations confronting the climate crisis, to US$11.4 billion per year.
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Yet, even with this new US generosity, industrialised countries remain an estimated US$10 billion short of the target of US$100 billion a year in climate aid to the developing world. So the other countries will also need to dig deeper into their pockets.
And, in this context, there are also concerns about the stance of countries towards COP26. For instance, world leaders like Chinese President Xi Jinping and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison have yet to confirm their attendance.
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With much still to fall into place, UN Secretary General António Guterres warned last week that “nationally determined contributions that currently exist would result in an increase of 16 per cent in emissions by 2030, and that puts us on a catastrophic pathway of 2.7 degrees of global heating. This must stop.”
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