After COP26, world needs urgent action

After COP26, world needs urgent action

GLASGOW: The world must act quickly to cut greenhouse gas emissions and avoid “catastrophic” global warming, scientists and politicians warned after nearly 200 countries reached a last-minute agreement in Glasgow on Saturday. After two weeks of non-stop negotiations, almost all the world’s nations have agreed on a compromise to speed up the fight against rising temperatures.

But the deals stuck under the “Glasgow Pact” will not result in limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the most ambitious objective of the 2015 Paris Agreement. “Climate catastrophe is still knocking on the door,” warned UN boss Antonio Guterres. “We have kept 1.5 within reach, but the pulse is weak,” said Alok Sharma, Britain’s COP26 president who has been overseeing the conference in the country’s role as host.

COP27 is to be held in Egypt next November. Joeri Rogelj, director of research at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, said: “We are looking in the right direction, but we need to start moving and global emissions need to decline, immediately, rapidly, and extremely urgently.” The agreement in Glasgow was the first time after 25 previous conferences that the words “fossil fuels” and “coal” – the main culprits of global warming – have made