World leaders gathered Monday at Glasgow, Scotland, for a high-stakes COP26 climate summit of the United Nations, where they are discussing practical ways to combat the warming Earth, even as several nations, including the U.S., fall short of emissions cut targets and experiencing difficulties in approving domestic climate change legislation.
At the 2021 COP26 summit, which lasted until 12th November, thousands of climate activists, diplomats, and delegates discussed how to curb the global temperatures increase to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels but, if possible, to 1.5 degrees. The upcoming forty-eight hours will see international leaders facing pressure to turn political promises to address climate change into concrete actions.
Joe Biden, the President of the United States, expressed in an address to the summit that it should be the beginning of a decade of ambition to tackle climate change. According to Gina McCarthy, the national climate adviser of Biden, the U.S. president will spend forty-eight hours in Glasgow stressing how within three decades, the United States can meet the global climate commitments by electrifying transportation, decarbonizing the power sector, cutting non-CO2 emissions, and transforming the industry as well as reviving natural lands to achieve net-zero gas emissions of the greenhouse by mid-century.
Today, I’m in Glasgow to kick off COP26. Climate change is the challenge of our collective lifetimes — the existential threat to human existence as we know it. And every day we delay, the cost of inaction increases.
Let this be the moment that we answer history’s call.
— President Biden (@POTUS) November 1, 2021
Biden’s $1.75 Trillion Spending Package
The U.S. president said that no one can escape the worst that is still to come if the world countries fail to take hold of the moment. Biden arrived in Glasgow for the summit with his one hand tied behind his back because two Democratic divisions in Congress delayed the approval of a $1.75 trillion spending bill that features contains $555 billion in climate provisions.
Earth would Warm by above Preindustrial Levels by the century end
Glasgow is hosting the climate summit amid growing concern from scientists that countries are not doing enough to cut greenhouse gas emissions that caused an average increase in global temperatures. In late October, the United Nations issued a report which concluded that by the end of the century, under vows to rein in global warming, the Earth would warm by around 2.7 degrees Celsius, which is more than the preindustrial levels.
The United Kingdom’s Prince Charles said that the coronavirus pandemic revealed to everyone how devastating a worldwide, cross-border threat it can be. Biodiversity loss and climate change are no different – actually, they pose an even huge experiential threat, to the extent that the world put itself on what might term an aggressive footing.
During initial remarks to the summit, the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio said it was an illusion to think the organization is on track to turning the world around. Guterres also urged the developed and emerging countries to form alliances to make technological solutions to certify that the 1.5-degree Celsius target was achieved.
It’s one Minute to Midnight
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed that humanity ran down the clock on global climate change long ago. Further, he adds that it is one minute to midnight, and world leaders need to act now. And if world-leading countries do not get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for the new generation to do so tomorrow. He tweeted that over a hundred leaders representing eighty-five percent of the forests of the world will take revolutionary action to combat deforestation by 2030.
Source: Web
Forests are the lungs of our planet.
Today @COP26, over 100 leaders representing 85% of the world’s forests will take landmark action to end deforestation by 2030.
With this pledge, we have a chance to end humanity’s long history as nature’s conqueror, and become its custodian.
— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) November 2, 2021
Each Day of the COP26 Conference Devoted to a Specific Climate Theme
The largest emitter of greenhouse gases, China, didn’t send its leader to the United Nations conference. Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, is also not attending the confab in person. On the other hand, a former environment minister in Peru’s government, Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, said they expected much more from G-20 nations, responsible for seventy-eight percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Each day of the COP26 confab will be dedicated to a specific climate theme such as gender, science, forests, cities, finance, loss & damage, and adaptation. The climate conference marks the twenty-sixth-time world countries leaders met to try to curb global warming of the planet. Last year, the meeting was postponed for one year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The former United States President, Donald Trump, pulled his country out of the agreement made at the 2015 Paris climate consensus, but the current President Joe Biden reentered on the first day of his joining office. Climate change is the primary cause of the weather disasters that are now five times more usual than in the 1970s. 2021 has been a year of nearly biblical weather disasters in the U.S.
An extraordinary heatwave brought temperatures as high as one hundred and seventeen degrees and killed several people in the Pacific Northwest. Similarly, unprecedented wildfires destroyed thousands of buildings and forests in California. Furthermore, tropical storm Henri caused huge damages of around $12 billion. In the same way, heavy rainfall killed twenty people in Tennessee in August. And hurricane Ida caused deadly flooding in Philadelphia, New York, and beyond.
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