In the background of the alarming report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), with its devastating conclusions on the status of the climate change, governments and other actors met in Glasgow to resume the postponed COP26 meeting and to determine how to cut greenhouse gas emissions in this decade and to address the climate impacts.  

By the end of this long-awaited meeting, some 151 countries submitted their new climate plans (known as nationally determined contributions, or NDCs) promising to slash their emissions by 2030. The tears of British politician Alok Sharma who chaired the Glasgow Conference remain one of the symbolic moments of COP26, when he expressed his deep sorrow at the mediocre results obtained. 

It is true that, until the end, the final formulation of the COP26 decision on the Glasgow Climate Pact, can hardly be considered a huge success.

What negotiators decided on the following three important topics: 

· International Carbon Markets. After five years of negotiations, the world’s governments settled on the rules for the global carbon market under the Paris Agreement.

· Countries were encouraged to use common timeframes for their national climate commitments. This meant that new NDCs in 2025 should have an end-date of 2035.

· All countries agreed to submit information about their emissions, financial, technological and capacity-building support using a common and standardized set of formats and tables. This could make reporting more transparent, consistent and comparable. 

Other changes that were, in principle, agreed upon:

· reducing the human footprints on the atmosphere, on earth and on oceans,

· finding a lasting solution to prevent further melting of ice in the artic and glaciers,

· stopping deforestations which leads to mud slides and destructions of ecosystems,

· stopping the warming of the oceans which leads to devastating flooding, cyclones and hurricanes,

· recognizing the urgency of the challenges to emissions reduction targets and limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees F).

· urgently delivering more resources to help climate-vulnerable countries to adapt to the dangerous and costly consequences of climate change

· curbing methane emissions, to halt and reverse forest loss,

· align the finance sector with net-zero by 2050,

· ditch the internal combustion engine,

· accelerating phasing-out coal and end international financing for fossil fuels.

The significant headway COP26 made on several fronts are as follows: 

• 109 countries signed up to the Global Methane Pledge (https://www.globalmethanepledge.org ) to slash emissions by 30% by 2030.

• 141 countries pledged (as of November 10) to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation (World Resources Instititute.org) by 2030 (backed by $18 billion in funding, including $1.7 billion dedicated to support indigenous peoples). 

• 46 countries, including the UK, Canada, Poland and Vietnam made commitments to phase out domestic coal, while a further 29 countries including the UK, Canada, Germany and Italy committed to end new direct international public support for unabated fossil fuels by the end of 2022 and to redirect this investment to clean energy. The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (beyondoilandgasalliance.com) led by Costa Rica and Denmark — with core members France, Greenland, Ireland, Quebec, Sweden and Wales — pledged to end new licensing rounds for oil and gas exploration and production and set an end date that is aligned with the Paris Agreement objectives.  

• Efforts were also made to scale up solar investment with the launch of a new “Solar Investment Action Agenda“ with the support of a number of philanthropists and private sectors that identify high-impact opportunities to speed up investment. The U.S. joined the fifteen nations forming the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.(worldresourcesinstitute.org) This Panel commits its members to manage their national waters on a sustainable basis. 

• Over 2,000 companies committed to develop science-based targets for reducing their emissions. New guidance for companies was agreed, setting credible net-zero targets for corporations launched ahead of COP26. 

• Over 1,000 cities and local governments joined the Cities Race to Zero (C40.org) to raise climate action and to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C. 

• 41 cities, 34 countries and 11 major automakers agreed to work toward selling only zero-emission vehicles globally by 2040, and by no later than 2035 in leading markets. 

The Glasgow decision asks all countries that have not yet done so to submit long-term strategies to 2050, aiming for a just transition to net-zero emissions around mid-century.

It also urged all countries to “revisit and strengthen” their 2030 targets by the end of 2022 so as to align them with the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals. 

For the first time, negotiators explicitly agreed to accelerate action toward phasing down unabated coal power and phasing out fossil fuel subsidies – important steps forward.  So, in the end, diplomats managed to keep hopes of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C alive – barely.  

Thus far, 90 countries have signed the Global Methane Pledge, mentioned above. A second agreement related to article 6 of the Paris Agreement (COP21), dealt with carbon credits. Article 6.4, in particular, provided an official United Nations framework for the creation and trading of carbon credits on a global scale. This common accounting framework should allow the interconnection of different existing trading systems, such as those currently operating in Europe, China and certain regions of the United States.

A scant review of these results shows that, although the summit made progress in a number of areas, given the uncertainty, mistrust and escalating climate impacts the final and collective agreements fell short of bold and necessary actions, such as calling for an end to fossil fuels and putting a price on carbon.

The picture coming out of COP26 is an imperfect one, as the world is still far off where it needs to be to stem the impacts of climate change and it remains off track to beat back the climate crisis by 2030. This applies to the national climate and financing commitments which fell short of what is needed to come to grips with facing climate challenges.

The sensitive political wavering at COP26 and the persistent gap between its objectives and its outcomes only confirmed that the objective of maintaining global warming at 1.5°C could be further away than many had hoped for. The International Energy Agency in reviewing the climate commitments of COP26 pointed rather to a warming of the planet which would be of the order of 1.8 degrees. And the independent analysis by the Climate Action Tracker even finds this result optimistic, estimating instead that current policies will lead to a warming of 2.7°C. 

The United Nations agreeing with these experts has also concluded that these plans, could put the world on a dangerous track for 2.5 degrees C (UNEP Emissions Gap Report 2021: The Heat Is On ) of warming by the end of the century. As they stand, these proposals reveal a major “credibility gap” between the 2.5 degrees C-aligned 2030 targets and nations’ net-zero targets. To fix this problem, the UN recommended that these countries’ must strengthen their 2030 emissions reduction targets to at least align with their net-zero commitments. 

Energy and strategic crisis in Europe

It was during the early hours of the Ukraine/Russia conflict that the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC Report:  Climate change 2022-Impact, adaptation and vulnerability). published its sixth report containing the bluntest assessments on the pending climate disasters. The report begins by: 

“Some losses were already irreversible, and ecosystems were reaching the limits of their ability to adapt to the changing climate”, the scientists warned.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the findings of the report an “atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership. I have seen many scientific reports in my time, but nothing like this.”

The report warned that in all regions extreme heat events have resulted and will continue to cause human mortality and morbidity. Also, the occurrence of climate-related food-borne and water-borne diseases has and will be increased. Some losses are already irreversible, such as the first species extinctions driven by climate change. Other impacts are approaching irreversibility such as the impacts of hydrological changes resulting from the retreat of glaciers, or the changes in some mountain and Arctic ecosystems driven by permafrost thaw.

The report recognized the interdependence of climate, ecosystems, biodiversity and human societies. The report has a particular focus on transformation and system transitions in energy, land, ocean, coastal and freshwater ecosystems.  These transitions identify the key risks generated by climate hazards on economic, social, health, ecosystem, and planetary health. A rise in sea levels poses an “existential threat” for some small islands, while vital infrastructure, such as ports and energy systems, would be “increasingly vulnerable” if not designed to withstand climate change. 

Climate change risks to cities, settlements and key infrastructure will rise rapidly in the mid- and long-term with further global warming, especially in places already exposed to high temperatures, along coastlines, or with high vulnerabilities.

While the UN was making special efforts to focus the world attention to the imminent problems of climate change and its devastating consequences, (giving the window of opportunity of a brief relief from pandemic), the unexpected conflict between Russia and Ukraine tipped the balance of peace and peace dividend enjoyed by generations. This sudden change called for European countries to commit major increases in military expenditures and countries like Germany with a low defense budget in Europe sought embraced a 2 per cent GDP target for its military expenditures. All increase in military expenditures lead to shortage in the national budgets which has to come from softer parts of their plans. These softer parts are mainly green energy and culture. The suspension of the North Stream 2 pipeline which was to supply gas from Russia equivalent to half of Germany’s and other European countries’ consumption was so alarming that some moved away from measures to improve living standards, and instead they adopted green energy and climate mitigation programs. With the growing fears of energy shortages around the world and concerns that a new outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic could hinder economic growth, some countries began to double down on fossil fuels. Energy insecurity was also driving up coal imports as nations raced to shore up fossil fuel supplies. In Europe, for instance, fears over disruptions of Russian gas supplies led to a rush on coal imports.

The German government, for example, came under pressure to reconsider its plans to exit coal and end the use of nuclear power in the short term.

In Australia, rising fuel prices have prompted calls by pro-coal members of the federal government demanding that Australia pause its plan for net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and double down on fossil fuels. China has approved mining expansions that pushed output to record levels and started construction on new generators powered by fuel. The country intends to boost domestic production capacity (Bloomberg.org March 14, 2022) by about 300 million tons. It also plans to build a 620 million-ton stockpile of the fuel. This is despite the fact that China’s main solar industry group has already projected a record number of new panels this year and renewables, such as desert wind and solar power program will grow to at least 450 gigawatts in size.

These reversals of objectives and long-term plans by various countries could give rise to many unavoidable crises. We stand at the tipping point on the climate change cliff.  It is, therefore, inconceivable that while Europe rethinks its fiscal rules, policymakers lose sight of the dangerous trajectory ahead and undo what was agreed upon after years of negotiations to switch away from green energy and sustainable development to business as usual.  

Let us conclude that for a brief period, hopes were high that sudden changes in the geo-politics of the world will have a minor impact on years of discussions, debates and plans for green and sustainable energy.

Conclusion

The on-going crisis in Eastern Europe could provide an alarming lack of foresight and anticipation by strategic planners. As experts say this could cause backward steps in the world’s progress on tackling climate change. 

It also shows us that the future had been left out of our leaders’ field of vision. Politicians are absorbed by the emergencies of the present and have turned their back to the future. The result is an uncertain international society and a vulnerable world. Strengthening the renewable industry against external events is vital in ensuring consistent progress on the world’s energy transition goals.

The Russia-Ukraine crisis is already a human catastrophe, and it could also prove disastrous for climate action by slowing the global energy transition. These two nations hold key materials for the world’s renewable energy systems. Global progress towards reducing our reliance on fossil fuels by increasing use of solar and wind projects could be slowed down due to this conflict. A shortfall in materials used to produce such technologies will only put the world further behind.

This crisis could have provided a wake-up call for countries to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels by investing in renewable energy, and better managing domestic energy demand.

Groups of leaders, among them former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, are calling for powerful international action to update the architecture of global governance. Many European politicians are demanding that the European Union lead economic reconstruction with a New Green Deal. Philosophers, journalists and opinion leaders propose a change in ways of living, of relating to nature and of relations between nations. These are elements of what can become an alternative narrative for action.