Global Efforts to Tackle Climate Change Challenges - Tune in to COP 26

Collaboration – Cooperation – Collective Action: buzz words that really matter today as the nations of the world come together to address a wide range of climate change challenges. Public sector leaders, asset managers, corporate boards and managements, NGOs, activists, scientists, and civic leaders in many nations (developed and developing) will participate and/or tune in to the Glasgow proceedings, which have the potential to dramatically impact strategies, plans and programs of many organizations.

Stay Tuned to COP 26 – the annual climate change conference, this year in Glasgow, Scotland.

The United Nations organized the Conference of Parties (“COP” for shorthand) as the “supreme decision-making body” of the United National Framework Convention on Climate Change (USFCCC).

The states of the world (almost 200 today) that implement the convention and its legal instruments agree to support the work of the convention, in meetings we know generally as the COP gatherings.

COP meets every year going back to the first gathering in March 1995 in Germany. The COP Presidency rotates among regions (Africa, Asia, Latin America & Caribbean, Central & Eastern Europe, and Western Europe and others). Some of the meetings have stood out, such as the December 1997 COP 3 meeting in Kyoto, Japan -- out of which came the “Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.”

The “Paris Agreement,” which was the result of COP 21, the November 2015 meeting in Paris, France, established NDCs or National Determined Contributions, which are a nation’s commitment to reduce emissions and adapt to the impacts of climate change and are embodied in the Paris Agreement language.

“Each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain nationally-determined contributions that it intends to achieve. Parties (states of the world) shall pursue domestic mitigation measures, with the aim of achieving the objectives of such contributions.” Lagging nations are often publicly- criticized for not following through after agreeing to in the 2015 Paris meetings.

The U.S. began the process to officially bow out of the Paris Agreement and Convention after the 2016 elections but will now be back at the table in 2021. Former U.S. Senator and Secretary of State John Kerry, now servicing as the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, will be the U.S. representative in Glasgow.

COP 26, known formally as the Glasgow Climate Change Conference, is being hosted by the United Kingdom, in partnership with Italy, from October 31 to November 12 at the Scottish Event Campus. This was rescheduled from the original date in November 2020 due to the pandemic, which is still an issue; today there is concern that nations with significant unvaccinated populations may have trouble in participating; fears are that they may be “shut out.” All participants in COP 26 are required to be vaccinated.

COP 26 agenda items include Action of Climate and SDGs; Capacity Building; Climate Finance; Climate Technology; Market and Non-Market Mechanisms; Adaptation and Resilience; Mitigation; and many more.

The Top Stories below include information on these topics, and we will be sharing more news and perspectives in the days leading up to, during and after this important gathering. Will there be Collaboration – Cooperation – Collective Action going forward on climate change issues?For now, Stay Tuned to COP 26 and the promise of action on climate change challenges.

This is just the introduction of G&A's Sustainability Highlights newsletter this week. Click here to view the full issue.