COP26 is the world’s most significant summit on Climate Change. It was hosted in UK between 1-12 November 2021 in Glassglow.

COP stands for Conference of Parties. As it was the 26th summit it is called as COP26. It was hosted in partnership between the UK and Italy.

Some of the Key Announcements made at COP26

• The UK, South Africa, France, Germany, the US and the EU announced the Just Energy Transition Partnership to support South Africa’s transition to clean energy away from coal. The first phase of financing has an initial commitment of $8.5bn, and the model could be replicated for other countries.

• Over 100 national governments, cities, states and major businesses signed a declaration on accelerating the transition to 100% zero-emission cars and vans. With all sales of new cars and vans being zero emission globally by 2040, and no later than 2035 in leading markets.

• Over 30 countries agreed to cut methane emissions by 30%. Notably, the world’s greatest emitters of methane, China, the US and India were absent from this pledge, although it is hoped that they may join later.

• Over 40 nations pledged to phase out coal use within the 2030s (and within the 2040s for poorer nations). This includes major coal-dependent nations such as Poland, Vietnam and Chile. However, some of the world’s largest coal-consuming nations, such as China, the US, India and Australia, did not sign up for the pledge.
• Over 100 nations, including Canada, Brazil, Russia, China, Indonesia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the US and the UK, signed up to a pledge to end world deforestation by 2030. The pledge includes almost £14bn ($19.2bn) of public and private funds.
• Several nations have agreed to pledges around issues of gender and climate change, including the UK pledging £165m of funding to address the challenges of gender inequality and climate change.
• The world’s largest emitters of carbon dioxide, the United States and China, have pledged to work together to take action against climate change.
• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set aggressive targets for low carbon power by 2030 and a net zero target by 2070 across all greenhouse gases.