Here are five of the biggest takeaways from the UN Climate Conference:

1. Deforestation

One of the first announcements at COP26 was 141 countries agreeing to end global deforestation by 2030. The declaration commits to “working collectively to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030, while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation”.

Importantly, countries that are deforestation hotspots such as Brazil, Indonesia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo signed the agreement. The pledge seeks to create holistic stewardship of forests across the world, by taking action in sustainable production, infrastructure development, trade, and greater support for Indigenous peoples and local communities.

However, like most of the commitments made at COP, words need to be backed by action. The drivers behind deforestation, like beef and palm oil production, need to be tackled for this pledge to make a real change.

2. Coal

We’ve been mining coal for thousands of years and using it to generate power since the late 19^th century. The canary has been singing for many years now that our dirtiest fuel source needs to be a thing of the past, and last week more than 40 countries agreed that using coal as a fuel source to generate electricity must come to an end.

Large coal-using countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and South Korea all signed the agreement to phase out coal by 2030 or 2040, deeming it essential to limiting global warming to 1.5°C.

Disappointingly, some of the world’s largest coal-users like the US, China, and Australia were missing from the agreement. However, coal is quickly becoming more expensive than renewable energy and this economic reality means many investors have already jumped ship.

3. Methane

Methane warms the climate about 84 times more than carbon dioxide, but methane also remains in the atmosphere for around 12 years compared to the hundred-year presence of CO^₂. This means cutting methane emissions now could have a rapid impact on reducing global warming whilst CO^₂ emissions take longer to be reduced.

Under the Global Methane Pledge announced at COP26, more than 100 countries have agreed to shrink their methane emissions by 30% by 2030. This was backed up by commitments of US$325 million from foundations and philanthropy groups.

Australia is once again lagging behind the rest of the developed world by not signing the pledge and making no commitment to cut its methane emissions, despite having one of the highest global per capita methane emissions from its large coal and agricultural industries.

It’s especially disappointing because the solutions to reduce methane are within reach. One great innovative example is Australian company Sea Forest who have developed agricultural feed supplements from seaweed that reduces livestock methane emissions by up to 98%. Sea Forest’s seaweed was used to feed the sheep used for cotton by Carbon Neutral partner M. J. Bale in 2021.

4. Shipping

The global shipping industry pumps out more than a billion tonnes of CO^₂ emissions every year, making up around 3% of the global total. Twelve countries, led by Denmark, announced an ambitious target at COP26 for global shipping to reach net zero emissions by 2050, and setting new reductions targets to be met by 2023.

The Clydebank Declaration was also signed by 19 countries, including Australia, to commit to so-called ‘green shipping corridors’ of zero-emission fuel routes with port infrastructure and technology developments such as hydrogen fuels. Such a route is being proposed for Australia’s iron ore shipping journey to Japan, which is the most heavily emitting route on the planet.

Critics say the plan is more likely to sink than stay afloat, criticizing it for lack of detail and immediate short-term actions to be taken. Along with aviation, the shipping industry still has a long way to go to align with the reductions required to reach a 1.5°C goal; of the 50,000 ships currently in international trade, only 200 will be ‘green ships’ by 2030.

5. Finance

Like most things in politics, money runs the show. Climate finance, which is transnational flow of money from developed to developing economies, was a key undercurrent of most discussions and agreements at COP26. These issues are particularly pertinent, as it’s developing countries that are tipped to face the worse effects of the climate crisis such as more intense droughts and fiercer floods, and developed economies that are most responsible for emissions.

The African Group of Negotiators on Climate Change called for US$700 billion in climate finance every year from 2025 to help the continent adapt to climate-caused damage and loss. At 2009’s COP15 in Copenhagen, rich countries agreed to commit $100 billion annually, but they’ve failed to deliver on their promise and delivered only around $80 billion.

New finance goals were also proposed for climate adaptation separate to emission reduction as adaptation is urgently needed while climate targets continue to fail to be met.

Australia committed $500 million of climate finance on the first day of COP26, with funds to go toward projects in the neighbouring Indo-Pacific region. Pacific countries like Fiji have criticised Australia’s meager emission reduction targets in the past, as they face potentially huge consequences from the climate crisis. Barbados’ Prime Minister, Mia Mottley, delivered one of the most powerful moments of COP26, stating that a 2°C rise in global temperature would be a “death sentence” and called for more funding to small island nations on the frontlines of climate change.

Positives steps forward or a global COP out?

Many more issues were brought to the table at COP26, such as carbon trading and electric vehicles, and a lot more developments undoubtedly took place behind the scenes.

The ultimate mission of COP26 was to ‘keep 1.5 alive’, and 137 of the 197 UNFCCC countries have now pledged net zero targets, (only 13 of which have been legislated).

The scientific community and other critics say world leaders have missed the opportunity to use COP26 to spark the change that’s needed to protect a planet on the brink; even if all commitments promised at COP26 are met, temperature increase by 2100 will overshoot 1.5°C and hit 2.4-2.6°C above pre-industrial levels. Perhaps this should come as no surprise when the largest delegation present at the conference was the fossil fuel lobby.

Despite the promises of progress, the question remains whether real action will be delivered before it’s too late.

On Sunday, more than 25,000 representatives from around the world converged in Glasgow, charged with the small task of negotiating, discussing, and planning the future of the climate of our planet.

Glasgow is the 26^th iteration of the Conference of Parties (COP), and is taking place from October 31 to November 12.

The history of COP

COPs serve as an annual meeting to assess progress in addressing the global challenge of the climate crisis under the framework of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The first COP was held in Berlin in 1995, and the conferences have had a chequered history. The 2009 COP in Copenhagen ended disastrously, after a leaked draft agreement that placed unfair burdens on developing nations spiraled talks into disarray and drew controversy.

This ‘Danish text’ was also criticized for abandoning the Kyoto protocol; an agreement reached in Japan at the 1992 COP that set in place greenhouse gas reduction obligations, emissions trading, and clean development mechanisms.

COP21 in Paris in 2015 signalled another global landmark with big implications for this year’s conference. Since the industrial revolution, global temperatures have risen by about 1.1°C, and about 1.5°C in Australia. In Paris, global governments made legally-binding commitments to limit global temperatures to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, whilst trying to pursue a lower increase of 1.5°C.

However, the national targets made by individual countries are non-binding, and widely recognised as scientifically inadequate. If these nationally determined contributions are met, global temperatures would rise by more than 3°C by 2100. At such an increase, catastrophe looms in the form of more severe weather events, land degradation, extinction and rising sea levels.

The broad acknowledgement that these 2015 pledges lacked any real strength spurred the decision to require each nation to refresh their targets every five years. That five-year milestone arrived in 2020, but the pandemic led to COP26 being postponed until 2021.

Why is COP26 important?

Despite COVID-19 pauses, greenhouse gases hit record levels in 2020, and are increasing at a higher rate than ever before.

The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released in August this year concluded the window for limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C is narrowing fast.

Due to the fact that greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere for nearly a century, global emissions need to peak as soon as possible then be reduced dramatically this decade so that cumulative levels don’t surpass the 1.5°C threshold.

COP26 hopes to focus on how these lofty goals will be achieved by countries working together toward solutions, across issues like climate financing, the phasing-out of coal and agricultural emissions.

The EU, US, UK, and other countries have stepped-up their climate commitments in the lead up to Glasgow, leading to the most significant jump in ambition by more countries than ever before.

UN representatives, scientists, and global leaders have conceded that even these new commitments will fall short of what is required, but they do expect significant progress and momentum to keep the goal of 1.5°C alive.

Australia recently announced its target of net-zero emissions by 2050, but made no changes to its heavily-criticised 2030 emission reduction target. Australia’s net-zero plan, based on existing policy or technologies that don’t yet exist, has been said to have “all the strength of a wet paper bag” by Murdoch University fire ecologist Joe Fontaine.

Nature-based solutions are one of the big-ticket items on the COP26 agenda as they are universally regarded as one of the most crucial components of the climate toolbox. Projects of this type protect and restore ecosystems.

Native reforestation and soil carbon projects have been flagged by Australia as key to its net-zero transition. Projects like our Yarra Yarra Biodiversity Corridor continue to grow and sequester significant amounts of carbon. Recent research from ClimateWorks Australia suggests Australia’s land and agriculture could sequester four times as much carbon as they are currently.

Carbon trading was first proposed at COP3 in Kyoto, and is also marked as a focus for discussion in Scotland. The carbon market has expanded massively in recent years, including in Australia where it is entirely voluntary, with the exception of large emitters. Other regions such as the EU and New Zealand have compliance carbon markets, and whether our market will continue to remain voluntary in the future could be uncertain after COP26.