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 Market Mysteries of the week

  Did they accomplish anything at the UN climate conference?

Answer:

It depends on who you ask. Climate activist Greta Thunberg told the conference

where they could put it

. Former President Barack Obama has more

.

What is this conference?

The

26th Conference of the Parties

, also known as the

COP26

, is the

annual United Nations Climate Change Conference.

This year, the conference was held in Glasgow, Scotland. World leaders gathered alongside tens of thousands of negotiators, government representatives, businesses, activists, and citizens to discuss climate change as a global priority over the last twelve days. It has been two years since the previous COP summit due to the pandemic, and the world has since been plagued by more heatwaves, wildfires, mass flooding events, and other climate change disasters.

Why is the COP26 important?

The

COP26 brings countries and leaders together to strategize how to address climate change.

At the COP21

in 2015,

the Paris Agreement was born

, and 192 parties committed to collectively limiting global warming to 1.5°C. This year, participants aimed to

secure global net-zero by 2050 and keep 1.5°C within reach

, adapt to protect communities and natural habitats, put more capital behind climate initiatives, and work together to push forward and deliver actions in line with the Paris Agreement.

So what happened?

• Over 100 countries pledged to end deforestation by 2030. The countries that signed the pledge are home to approximately 85% of the world’s forests.

• Through the Global Methane Pledge, over 100 other countries pledged to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030.

• For the first time, India, the world’s third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases, committed to reaching net-zero emissions, albeit in 2070. Vietnam, Nepal, Nigeria, and Kenya set net-zero targets for 2050, 2045, 2060, and 2050, respectively.

• The US, UK, and EU signed the $8 billion Just Energy Transition Partnership to help curb coal dependence in South Africa.

• More than 40 countries, representing over 70% of global GDP, signed the Glasgow Breakthroughs, which includes goals to accelerate clean technologies in five key sectors of the economy by 2030.

• Twenty-eight countries pledged to phase out coal, boosting the number of countries and organizations in the Powering Past Coal Alliance to 165. The US, China, and India have not signed the alliance.

• But 20+ countries, including the US, pledged to halt financing fossil fuel development overseas and divert $8 billion a year to green energy.

• Various countries pledged $232M for the global climate Adaptation Fund to boost climate resilience and adaptation projects in developing countries.

What’s in the final agreement?

“Fossil fuels”

appears in the

agreement for the first time.

Never in the history of these conferences have the participants explicitly laid blame on or called for a reduction in the use of fossil fuels. This year, the pact nearly called for a complete phase-out of coal and fossil fuel subsidies. This year,

the fossil fuel industry had the largest delegation

at the COP26, outnumbering every national contingent in attendance.

Participating countries took negotiations over the conference agreement into overtime this weekend. The final words called for the

phasing out of “unabated” coal power as a priority and removing “inefficient subsidies” for all fossil fuels.

China and India called for weaker language in the final hours. It’s not as big of a statement as it could have been, but still pretty big.

Developing countries

, which are more at risk of climate disaster, were unhappy with the

lack of prescribed aid and funding from wealthier nations

to compensate for climate-related damages.

What do all the pledges and emissions reductions mean for global warming?

The

IEA predicted

that if all of the COP26 pledges were honored on time,

global warming would be limited to 1.8°C

. But this is still above the 1.5°C target set in the Paris Agreement, and implementing strategies to keep these pledges will require some serious work. Rapid progress on emissions reductions between now and 2030 is critical, but governments are only making bold promises for future decades.

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