In Conversation With Achim Steiner
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The moment has come: The Super Bowl of climate change, the Olympics of decarbonization, the Met Gala of nonbinding emission-reduction promises
There are great expectations by governments, businesses, and civil society for the Glasgow Climate Conference, or COP 26, as it’s known in the jargon. US Secretary of State John Kerry has labelled it “the last best hope for the world”, words echoed by UK COP President Designate, Alok Sharma.
Similar hyperbole is peppered liberally throughout the global media. There are good reasons to demand much of COP 26. Time is literally running out to avoid overshooting a temperature rise of 1.5˚C, the stronger of the two temperature targets enshrined in the Paris Agreement.
Although the main aim of the Paris Agreement is to level out at “well below” 2 ˚C, a 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established that the risks from climate change would be substantially reduced at the lower level.
Even if they won’t say it in public, most serious climate-watchers privately admit that 1.5˚C is a lost cause without fantastical levels of carbon drawdown from the atmosphere using unproven technologies. But if 1.5˚C is to be kept “in reach”, – as Alok Sharma and the environmental community want, and the most climate vulnerable states need – then the emission cuts needed to achieve it must be declared in 2021, at COP 26.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the leading United Nations organization fighting to end the injustice of poverty, inequality, and climate change. And recently released a clutch of reports to coincide with Cop 26
And to talk about these Michael Avery is joined by an environmentalist who currently serves as the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and chairman of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, Achim Steiner.
There are great expectations by governments, businesses, and civil society for the Glasgow Climate Conference, or COP 26, as it’s known in the jargon. US Secretary of State John Kerry has labelled it “the last best hope for the world”, words echoed by UK COP President Designate, Alok Sharma.
Similar hyperbole is peppered liberally throughout the global media. There are good reasons to demand much of COP 26. Time is literally running out to avoid overshooting a temperature rise of 1.5˚C, the stronger of the two temperature targets enshrined in the Paris Agreement.
Although the main aim of the Paris Agreement is to level out at “well below” 2 ˚C, a 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established that the risks from climate change would be substantially reduced at the lower level.
Even if they won’t say it in public, most serious climate-watchers privately admit that 1.5˚C is a lost cause without fantastical levels of carbon drawdown from the atmosphere using unproven technologies. But if 1.5˚C is to be kept “in reach”, – as Alok Sharma and the environmental community want, and the most climate vulnerable states need – then the emission cuts needed to achieve it must be declared in 2021, at COP 26.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the leading United Nations organization fighting to end the injustice of poverty, inequality, and climate change. And recently released a clutch of reports to coincide with Cop 26
And to talk about these Michael Avery is joined by an environmentalist who currently serves as the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and chairman of the United Nations Sustainable Development Group, Achim Steiner.
