World leaders agree to raise more funds to help developing nations tackle climate change.
They also agreed that nations return in a year with stricter targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
They further pledged to stop and reverse deforestation by 2030 and are raising $19 billion in public and private funds to protect and restore forests.
This was in a joint statement signed also by Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo which are together, home to 85% of world’s forests.
Several countries pledged to attain net zero emissions by 2050.
The 26th session of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) held in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, from 31 October – 12 November 2021 was not without achievements.
It was attended by countries (the parties) that signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – a treaty agreed in 1994.
Foreign Minister, Simon Kofe, of the Pacific island country of Tuvalu, recorded his speech to COP26 standing knee-deep in water to highlight the fact that sea levels in his country are rising.
The East African country of Madagascar cried out to COP26 that it is being ravaged by drought.
Activist Greta Thunberg and other young marchers held a climate justice protest in the streets of Glasgow over the apparent slow pace of implementing climate change resolutions.
She wants countries to halve greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2030, on their way to net-zero emissions by 2050.
Net zero emissions means no more greenhouse gases than the amount recaptured from the atmosphere.
Less developed countries specially, hope to benefit and get help towards protecting and restoring ecosystems to stop loss of lives, homes and livelihoods to climate change.
World leaders, before COP26, pledged $100 billion annually for climate action in developing countries, but this has remained largely, unfulfilled.
Former US President Barack Obama said: “We are nowhere near where we need to be” at the COP26 climate conference.
Heads of government and about 30,000 delegates attended the summit which was earlier scheduled to start 1 April, 2020 but was re-scheduled due to Covid-19 pandemic.
China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin did not attend.
Queen Elizabeth 11 of England, 95 years old and facing health challenges, could also not come to declare it open.
She was asked by her doctors to take two weeks rest.
President Joe Biden of United States and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of United Kingdom and 100 other world leaders attended.
President Biden, as expected, tried to show how the US is living-up to his Earth Day pledge on 22 April, 2021 to fully abide by the Paris Climate Change Agreement of 2015.
He apologised for US pulling out of the Paris Agreement under President Trump.
President Biden returned the US to the Paris Agreement on his first day in office (19 February, 2021). President Donald Trump exited it on 4 November, 2020.
There was also pressure on China, seen as being one of the worst polluters with several coal-fired plants and with more coming up.
Floods, erosion, hurricane, severe drought and famine are just some of the natural disasters that are much more rampant now.
Global warming is raising temperatures; causing drought in highlands and melting glaciers triggering rising sea levels and flooding in coastal plains.
Sub-Saharan Africa faces an imminent drought from global warming.
Lake Chad is now 10% of its original size, dislocating 30 million fishermen and farmers and worsening the insecurity in the West African basin.
In Africa, deserts are encroaching as trees are cut down for fuel wood and the environment is not exploited in a sustainable manner.
Africa’s Great Green Wall started with planting of trees like a belt from Senegal in the west to Djibouti in the east from 2007 to end 2030.
The aim was to check coastal erosion in the west and desertification in the east.
However, millions of the planted trees were lost to high temperature and poor rains.
Trees are essential in the ecosystem because they absorb 30% of all carbon dioxide emissions for photosynthesis and give up oxygen in the process.
Trees are therefore, not just a check against desertification but, also against global warming.
Pollutants like greenhouse gases or CFCs deplete the protective Ozone layer, exposing the Earth to the Sun’s radiation.
Cleaner energy forms are the way to go: Solar energy, Electric Vehicles for fossil fuel-fired ones and nuclear electricity for coal-fired plants.
Carbon dioxide emission levels have been set but are not strictly followed, mostly in the more developed countries, due to increasing demand for energy to power growth and create jobs and wealth.
Can the world keep global temperatures from rising above 2°C and pursuing efforts to limit it to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels as in the Paris Agreement?
The task is by, no means, easy.
At least one billion people in the world will suffer extreme heat stress if global temperatures increase by 2°C (3.6°F) according to UK’s Meteorology Office.
SAVE LAKE CHAD
As the 26th session of the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP 26) ends in Glasgow, let the world not forget Lake Chad: a dying victim of climate change.
The lake is now 10% of its original size, displacing most of the 30 million fishermen and farmers who depend on it for livelihood; worsening the insecurity in that West African basin.
BIDEN’S VIRTUAL CLIMATE SUMMIT OF 23 APRIL, 2021
US President Joe Biden said “Science is back” in his Earth Day message on 22 April, 2021.
By that, he meant he will be guided by scientific facts in dealing with climate change issues.
On 23 April, 2021 he held a virtual meeting with some world leaders on climate change.
Those in the meeting include some African leaders like President Muhammadu Buhari.
President Buhari pledged Nigeria’s commitment towards the attainment of the objectives of the Paris Agreement.
He commended President Biden for convening the summit which, he said, will be instrumental in galvanising support for the implementation of the Paris Agreement and its Katowice Rulebook.
President Buhari further commended President Biden for returning the US to the Paris Agreement.
President Biden re-pledged the commitment of US to the ideals of the Paris Agreement.
pictures courtesy: presidency, vanguard newspapers
