Leader

NST Leader: COP26

Strangely, some world leaders gathered at the COP26 conference, which began in Glasgow on Sunday, think we have eight years to keep the Earth's temperature at 1.5°C.

No, we don't. We have just 12 days — the number of days left of the COP26 conference — to keep the planet's temperature from spiralling to 3°C. Here is why.

Firstly, America, the world's second-biggest polluter, is heading to Glasgow empty handed because President Joe Biden's own party couldn't bring itself to support the US$555 billion he wanted for his climate plan.

Blame it on politicians who think the fossil fuel lobby is more important than the fate of the planet.

Talk about their responsibilities to this and the generations yet unborn. There is another way to grow the world. And that is without fossil fuels.

Britain, COP26 host, isn't any better. While pushing others to come up with ambitious emissions cuts, Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems to think the COP26 host has privileges others don't have.

He, like Biden's party mates, has his heart attached to fossil fuels. North Sea oil and Britain are inseparable, it seems.

Sadly, America and Britain aren't the only ones afflicted by the words-deeds divide. G20 and Asia-Pacific countries, too, are down with similar afflictions. Both are ambitious on promises, but poor on delivery.

Take G20, the bloc which produces 80 per cent of the world's emissions, first.

Meeting in Rome on Sunday, leaders from the bloc proudly announced their agreement to keep global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels "in language tougher than the 2015 Paris accords", reported news agency AFP quoting sources close to diplomats gathered at the Italian capital city.

And words — not deeds — were the only tough things said there. If AFP is right, earlier draft communiques seem to suggest that the tough words would "fall short of a firm pledge to keep global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels".

Neither was there a clear timeline on how to reach net-zero emissions.

The Asia-Pacific region is also a disappointment. Of the 30 countries there, only 11 have submitted their nationally determined contributions (NDC), writes Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, United Nations under-secretary-general and executive secretary of Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), in an op-ed in the New Straits Times. Of the 11, some can do with more ambition.

More troubling are the 19 countries in the region which have not submitted their NDC. Whether we like it or not, emissions are heading north in this region.

It is no surprise as Asia is home to China and India, the world's top and third-biggest polluters.

Some countries like India seem to think that the world's major economies must go carbon neutral first because they were the reason for the Earth to have warmed to 1.2°C in the first place.

While India has a point, it misses the logic. Emissions have their own logic. What went before is made worse by what comes later.

It doesn't matter if the emissions are from the US or China. They all add up in a bad way for everyone. A 3°C world will be the same for all eight billion people the Earth now hosts.

There is only one way to arrest climate change. And that is by collective action. COP26 just doesn't have it. Glasgow is as much Britain's failure as the rest of the world's.

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