This year, COP26 is being held in Scotland and expectations for this event are very high.
But what exactly is it, who will go for it and what are the stakes? Here you can read everything you want to know about the latest round of climate change negotiations.
What is COP26?
COP - short for "Conference of the Parties" - is an annual summit that brings together 197 countries to discuss climate change and how countries - and all of us - plan to deal with it.
It is an integral part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - an international agreement signed by almost every country and territory in the world with the aim of reducing the impact of human activity on the climate.
COP26 will be the 26th such gathering since the treaty entered into force on March 21, 1994.
This year it will be held in Scotland's second largest city, Glasgow, between November 1 and 12.
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How important is COP26?
Very much so.
COP26 will be the first summit to review what has been achieved - or not achieved - since the signing of the Paris Agreement on climate change in 2015.
This agreement, also known as the Paris Agreement, is practically humanity's plan to avoid climate catastrophe.
He acknowledges that if warming continues to increase more than 1,5 degrees Celsius above the temperatures we experienced in pre-industrial times, many of the changes to the planet will be irreversible.
As with any plan, you have to stick to it to make it work, and that's where COPs come in.
Think of them as team activities, where everyone gets together to discuss tactics and make sure everyone is doing their part.
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And so at COP21 in Paris, key goals for all of us were outlined in order to avoid catastrophic climate change.
All the signatories committed themselves to the following points:
- reduce greenhouse gases
- increase the production of renewable energy
- stop global temperature rise "well below" two degrees Celsius, with the goal of limiting it to 1,5 degrees Celsius
- invest billions of dollars to help poorer countries cope with the consequences of climate change
It was also agreed that every five years there would be a review of the achieved progress.
The first was supposed to take place in 2020 at COP26, but due to the pandemic it had to be postponed to 2021.
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What difference has the pandemic made?
The pandemic put a huge cog in the wheels of this initiative - and not just because it postponed the summit itself for a year.
But looking on the bright side, Covid has given us an unprecedented chance to review the economic recovery in the period after the outbreak of the pandemic.
Do we really need to fly that often?
Can telecommuting help reduce emissions from traffic jams?
Does the future lie in de-urbanization? And so on.
President Joe Biden (who reversed his predecessor's decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement) has already made climate change policy a top priority as part of his plan to recover the US economy from the coronavirus.
And when they gather at COP26, the world's other decision-makers are also expected to set new long-term goals to combat climate change - goals that are expected to be ambitious and bold.
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What does COP26 want to achieve?
A lot of that.
First of all, there are still many unresolved issues from the previous summit - COP25 in Madrid.
You probably remember Swedish activist Greta Turnberg giving an impassioned speech then, warning world leaders of the dangers of climate inaction and ignoring scientific evidence.
But even that did not help the countries reach an agreement on extremely conflicting issues.
For example, poorer countries are among the first to feel the direct effects of climate change.
Therefore, before the start of COP26, more than 100 developing countries made demands:
- Financing (from richer countries) the fight against climate change and adaptation to it
- Compensation (again, from richer countries) for the consequences it will lead to for them
- Money (you guessed it, again from the rich) to help create greener economies
Well, now imagine that you are one of the richer countries.
Together, they pledged $100 billion a year until 2020 to meet those demands.
But now it's 2021, and they've raised only $79 billion so far, and the vast majority of those funds are loans (which have to be paid back), instead of grants (which don't have to).
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This topic - known as climate finance - will be one of the biggest at the upcoming summit.
Another point of contention is likely to be over the best way to run a system of carbon markets and carbon credits.
It is a mechanism that allows polluters to pay for emissions and to sell "carbon credits" to greener economies.
Sounds fair, right?
But imagine if rich countries just pay for a "permit to pollute" instead of bringing about real change?
And who decides how much a country should pay for emissions from deforestation, for example?
Even if the Glasgow summit succeeds in agreeing to all of the above, to make sure we all really agree on it we need "common deadlines" for all the green goals we've set ourselves.
You would think that this is something that could easily be accomplished.
Unfortunately, that is not the case.
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So, COP 26 will be a tall mountain to climb, even before it starts dealing with entirely new agenda items.
The top priority will be committing countries to zero net emissions by mid-century, with more aggressive, faster decarbonisation by 2030.
The so-called natural solutions will also be discussed.
This means using nature itself to solve some of the problems created by climate change - such as absorbing carbon or planting shrubs and trees as protection against extreme weather such as floods and sandstorms.
A number of targeted initiatives are also expected to be launched to address specific issues such as eliminating coal use and preserving ecosystems.
Greta will most likely not attend this year's summit, but the Pope is rumored to be considering a special guest appearance.
In any case, there will be something to see. Do not change the channel.
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