COP26: The World Is Watching

GLASGOW – October 31th, 2021 – In 2015, the world came together in Paris to tackle climate change. Six years later, COP26 in Glasgow will aim to deliver on the promises of the Paris Agreement. World leaders and national delegations, representatives from businesses, civil society and youth are gathering for two weeks to accelerate progress.

The connection between climate change and its impact on human wellbeing and poverty is increasingly visible: unchecked, it will push 132 million people into poverty over the next 10 years, undoing hard-won development gains. And according to the World Bank’s most recent research, climate change impacts could drive 216 million people to migrate within their own countries by 2050.

A core goal of COP26 is to keep “1.5 alive”, that is to limit temperature rise to the 1.5-degree Celsius limit agreed in Paris. The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees C above pre-industrial levels, with the seven warmest years just in the last decade.

COP26 is also particularly critical because it marks the moment when countries are supposed to update their original climate pledges (the national targets or NDCs that were submitted ahead of COP21) and make these more ambitious. As of October 27, 2021, 116 countries plus the EU 27 have submitted new NDCs.

More…https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2021/10/31/cop26-the-world-is-watching?cid=ECR_E_NewsletterWeekly_EN_EXT&deliveryName=DM121817

Written by World Bank